"I haven't the head for it."
"I do not agree with you."
Their eyes met in a long regard. Here, in the crowded room of workers, the ceaseless uproar shut in their conversation with a walled completeness of privacy.
"I'm not sure whether you know it, Lestrange, but you've got me all stirred up since I met you," the younger man confessed plaintively. "You're different from other fellows and you've made me different. I'd rather be around the factory than anywhere else I know, now. But honestly I like you too well to watch you race."
"I want you to come."
"I—"
One of the men with a vessel of white, heaving molten metal was trying to pass through the narrow aisle. Dick broke his sentence to rise in hasty avoidance, and his foot slipped in a puddle of oil on the floor.
It was so brief in happening that only the workman concerned saw the accident. As Dick fell backward, Lestrange sprang forward and caught him, fairly snatching him from the greedy teeth. There was the rending of fabric, a gasping sob from Dick, and reeling from the recoil, Lestrange was sent staggering against a flying emery wheel next in line.
The workman set down his burden with a recklessness endangering further trouble, active too late.
"Mr. Lestrange!" he cried.