IV EVERYDAY LIFE
I came into the mill five minutes late one morning, and went to the green check-house at the gate, to pick 1611, the numerical me, from the hook. A stumpy man in a chair looked up and said: "What number?"
I gave it. "An easy way to lose forty-three cents," I thought, feeling a little sore at the stumpy man, and going out through the door slowly.
I increased my step along the road to the open-hearth, and reached my locker just as the Pole who shared it was leaving.
"Goddam gloves!" he was saying. "Pay thirty-five cents—three days—goddam it—all gone—too much. What you think?"
"I think the leather ones at fifty cents last better," I said.
He made a guttural noise, signifying disgust, and left.
I opened the locker, and disentangled my working-clothes, still damp from the last shift, from the Pole's. I removed all my "good" clothes, and stood for a minute naked and comfortable. The thermometer had registered 95° when I got up, at 4.00.
For the past few days I had been demoted to the pit; there had been no jobs open on the floor. As I took up my gloves and smoked glasses, I wondered how I could get back to furnace work.