"You bet they'll work! Everybody in my division works."
Foley's head pitman was a Pole named Watski Kalinski, a heavy-faced man, surly and quarrelsome at times, especially with the few men that were under him. He understood cleaning the cinder pits, however, and he was kept in his place because of the work that his shift got through with, rather than for any especial intelligence that he might possess; which, as a matter of fact, he did not.
"Put those two boys in number seven pit."
"Easy or light, you mutton-head. That don't mean anything. I know what you are getting at, but I'll have you understand that these young gentlemen are friends of mine. Give them the best you have in the house."
The words had apparently been spoken in all sincerity, but Watski grinned knowingly.
"I'll make the children happy, Mr. Foley. Do they begin this morning?"
"Yes; start them off now. I'll be around later in the day to help carry out the remains."
Watski chuckled. He walked over to where Bob and Steve stood waiting for orders to go to work, surveying them from his beady, red eyes; beady because nature had made them so, red from the heat and the cinders of years in the mills.
"That's the trick. Your name's Rush and you'll be Rush, for you're going to rush if you work in this section. What you been doing?"
"What we have been doing doesn't matter, so far as you are concerned. It is what we are going to do that concerns you. Will you please put us to work, or have some one do so who knows how?" asked Steve, perhaps with a touch of maliciousness in his tone.
"Put you to work? Get somebody to put you to work?"
"My name is Bob Jarvis, and don't you take any liberties with it, unless you've got an accident insurance on your life."
Watski's face wrinkled angrily. He clenched his fists, and for the moment it looked as though he would fall upon Jarvis and punish him for his boldness. Bob turned the tide by asking:
"When do we go to work? We're losing time?"
"See that cinder pit there?" leered the assistant.
Growling and making faces to himself the Pole walked abruptly away, returning a few minutes later with two shovels. He handed them to the boys, giving the lads a shove toward the cinder pit.
"Be good enough to keep your hands off me, and at the same time kindly tell me exactly what you wish me to do," demanded Steve.