"Thanks for the tea."
Then the summoning signal for a third-helper rang out—a sledge-hammer pounding on sheet iron. They were "spooning up," that is, making front-wall, on Number 6. All through that stunt I was wide awake, quite refreshed, though with the sense, the conviction, that I had been in the mill, doing this sort of thing, for a week at the inside.
Coming back to Seven from that, I found Fred flat on his back, looking "all in." Jock came up for a drink of water, and looked over at me.
"You look to me," he remarked, "like the breaking up of a bad winter." He laughed.
5 A.M. Monday
The sun came into the mill, looking very pallid and sick beside the bright light from the metal. I watched the men on Eight make back-wall, and heard the sounds; I sat on the bench, my legs as loose as I could make them, my head forward, eyes just raised.
"Lower, lower, goddam you, lower!" came a desperate command to the "pull-up" man to close the furnace doors.
"Get out—"
"One more—"
"Up, up, goddam it! where are your ears?"