"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, 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?"
"It's not like that with us. I gave everybody on Five a treat because I thought it was."
"Of course, on the open-hearth you pick them up with a tongs, when they're red-hot, and cool them in water."
"So there are always halves of test-ingots on the floor, _cold_. On the blast-furnace the stove-tender pours the test and knocks it out of the mould. Iron breaks easier than steel, so he never bothers to cool the ingot, but breaks it red-hot. Last Wednesday I wander up from the stoves when the furnace is ready to tap. The blower kicks busted halves of a test-ingot out of the way, and somebody says, 'A little too much sulphur.' I'm ambitious to learn iron smelting, too, and think I'll study the fracture. I walk in front of the blower and pick up the test."
"It wasn't red-hot," I went on; "but it had blackened over--_just_. I dropped it, and snapped my hand three feet behind me. The blower, the stove-tender, the first, second, and third helpers, and the assistant superintendent, who were all gathered, enjoyed the thing all over the place for several minutes. It gave them a good time for the afternoon."
When I left Herb, I took a walk through the Greek and Slavic quarters, and stopped a while on Superintendent's Hill, to study the graded superiority of foremen and superintendents. There were excellent little houses here, though too young and new to express any other character than moderate prosperity. Perhaps it was an ungracious thing to demand more.
I walked on, past farms, and up and down considerable hills. I lay down on the ground, in high grass, under apple trees which were near a tumble-down stone wall. It was enormously satisfactory to lie in the high grass, under an apple tree, listening to the small August noises--for a swift hour and a half.