"Well, how in hell are you?" It was Al, the pit boss.
"Fine!" I said as loudly as I could; and went and sat down at once. My chin hit my chest. I stopped thinking, but didn't go to sleep.
"Test!" yelled Fred.
We tested three times, and then tapped. There were two ladles, with four piles of manganese, to shovel in. A third-helper from Number 4, a short stocky Italian, shoveled with me. The ladle swung slightly closer to the gallery than usual, and sent up a bit more gas and sparks. We put out little fires on our clothes six or seven times. After the first ladle, the Italian put back the sheet iron over the red-hot spout, and after the second ladle, I put it on. We rested between ladles, in a little breeze that came through between furnaces.
"What you think of this job?" he asked.
"Pretty bad," I said, "but pretty good money."
He looked up, and the veins swelled on his forehead. His cheeks were inflamed, and his eyes showed the effects of the twenty hours of continuous labor.
"To hell with the money!" he said, with quiet passion; "no can live."
The words sank into my memory for all time.
The back-wall was, I think, no hotter than usual, but men's nerves made them mind things they would have smirked at the previous morning. The third-helper on Eight and Nick quarreled over a shovel, and Nick sulked till Fred went over and spoke to him. Once the third-helper got in Nick's way. "Get out, or I'll break your goddam neck!" And so on—