"When?"
"Yesterday, and ten minutes ago. In fact, I am waiting to begin under your directions, as he ordered."
"Oh, you are!" muttered Ike darkly, and in hissing long-drawn-out accents. "That's your lay, is it? Well, say, do you see those?"
Ike glanced keenly about him. Then advancing, he strutted up to Ralph, bunched one set of coarse, dirty knuckles, and rested them squarely on Ralph's nose.
Ralph did not budge for a second or two. When he did, it was with infinite unconcern and the remark:
"Yes, I see them, and a little soap and water wouldn't hurt them any."
"Say! do you want to insult me? say! are you spoiling for a fight? say----"
"Keep a little farther away, please," suggested Ralph, putting out one of those superbly-rounded, magnificently-formed arms of his, which sent the bullying Ike back, stiff and helpless as if he was at the end of an iron rod.
"Say----" Ike began on his war dance again. "This is too much!" Then he subsided as he noticed the foreman cross the roundhouse. "No chance now, but to-night, after work, we'll settle this!"
"Just as you like, Ike," assented Ralph accommodatingly--"only, drop it long enough just now to start me in at my duties, or we'll both have Mr. Forgan in our hair."