We were near enough to the top to see the boxes tilt, and the hopper open and swallow the dumping of stone. In a minute or two, we stepped out on the platform on top of the furnace.
Adolph looked at me and grinned. "You smell dat gas?" he asked.
I nodded. He referred to the carbon monoxide that I knew issued from the top of all blast-furnaces.
"You stay li'l bit, pretty soon you drunk," he said.
"Let's not," I returned.
"You stay li'l bit more," he continued, his grin broadening, "pretty soon you dead."
I learned in later days that this was perfectly accurate.
We stood on a little round platform fifteen or twenty feet across, with the hopper in the centre gobbling iron ore and limestone. A layer of ore dust, an inch thick, covered the flooring, and a faint odor of gas was in the air. Each of the other five furnaces had a similar lookout, and a narrow passageway connected them with the tops of the stoves. The top of these gigantic shafts likewise had a diameter of some fifteen feet; there were little railings about them, and in the centre a trapdoor.
"What's that for?" I asked.
"Go inside to clean 'em out," he returned.