"I'm on the floor, helpin' on Number 7."
"Att-a-boy!"
At last, Saturday night. Everyone felt Sunday coming, with twenty-four hours of drunkenness or sleep alluringly ahead. The other shift had tapped the furnace at three o'clock. We might not tap again, and that was nice to think about. A front-wall and a hot back-wall we went through as if it were better fun than billiards.
"Look out for me, I've got the de'il in me," from Jock, Scotch First on Number 8. I looked up, and the crazy fool had a spoon—they weigh over a hundred—between his legs, dragging it like a kid with a broomstick. As it bounced on the broken brick floor, he yelled like a man after a Hun.
"Who's the maun amang ye, can lick a Scotchman?" he cried, dropping the spoon to the floor.
"Is this the best stuff you can show on Number 8?" said Fred slowly. He dived for Jock's waist, and drew it to him, though the Scotchman tried to break his grip with one of his hands and with the other thrust off his opponent's face. When Fred had him tight, he caught one of Jock's straying arms, bent it slowly behind his back, and contrived a hammerlock.
"You're no gentlemen,"—in pain; "you're interruptin' my work."
Fred relaxed, and Jock jumped away.
"Come over to a good furnace, goddam it, and fight it out!" he yelled, from a distance that protected his words.