Part 30

Vincent was a young American, twenty-one or two, whose brother I had known in college. He had not gone himself, but took a straw boss's job in the pipe mill. He had married six months before, and his wife lived with him in two rooms in Bickford Lodge--the other hotel in Bouton. We went to the movies together sometimes, and often met for supper at the Greek's.

I looked for Vincent, and found him reading the "Saturday Evening Post" in the front room.

"Elizabeth is sick," he explained. "I'm sticking around to-day."

We fell to talking mill.

"What hours do you work now?" I asked.

"Six to six."

"You get up at five."

"Yes, about that."

"That's not true, Philip," came over the transom from the sick room. "I set the alarm at four-thirty, Phil sleeps till five-thirty, drinks one cup of coffee, leaves his eggs, and catches the twenty-of-six car."

"You now have the story," said Phil. "It's a stinking long day, isn't it?"

"Phil has it all figured out," Elizabeth shouted from the back room. "From six to nine, he pays his rent--"

"Yes, I've figured it that way," he said. "The money I earn between nine and one is enough to pay my day's board and my wife's; one to three is clothes and shoes; three to five, all other expenses; five to six I work for myself!"

"That's bully; I think I'll figure mine."

"But there aren't any evenings, are there," he went on, "or any Sundays?"

Suddenly he looked up at the chandelier. "See all the pipes in that," he said; "I find pipes and tubes everywhere, since I've worked in the mill. It's darn interesting to pick them out. The radiator in this room is made of pipe, see; the bed in the back room; notice those banisters outside. I see them everywhere I look. If I had a little money, I'd put it in a pipe mill. 'S money in that game, once you get the market; Coglin and I have it all doped out."

For fifteen minutes, Phil's enthusiasm for pipe-manufacture built the mills of the future.

Toward noon I went to George's. The pit craneman, Herb, was there, eating George's roast beef and boiled potato, and looking half asleep.

"I'll fire you," I said.

"I'm on nights this week," he returned, with a slow smile; "I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd get up and eat some. Besides, I've got to go to the bank. You're with the blast-furnaces now, huh?"

"Yes."

"Like 'em?"

"Yes, I think I'll like blast-furnace work," I said, "if I get to be stove-tender or something. Good boss, Beck."

"They say so. Pete's as crabby as ever in our place. He fired one of the second-helpers last week, Eric--d'you know him? Used to come in drunk every day, worked for Jock on Eight."

"That's too bad," I said; "he gave everyone a good time. Let me tell you how I amuse the gang on the blast-furnace. You know the way they break ingots for a test on the open-hearth?"

"Yes."

"It's not like that with us. I gave everybody on Five a treat because I thought it was."

Herb looked interested.

"Of course, on the open-hearth you pick them up with a tongs, when they're red-hot, and cool them in water."