"You lissen at me: if that's the fact, I'm tellin' you-all that every wheel on this blame', hoodooed railroad is goin' to stop turnin' at twelve o'clock on the night before that notice takes hold."
An oil-begrimed wiper crawled from under the 1031, spat at the dope-bucket and flung his bunch of waste therein.
"Gur-r-r! Let 'em stop," he rasped. "The dope's bad, and the waste's bad; and the old man has cut out the 'lectrics and put us back on them," kicking a small jacket lamp to the bottom of an empty stall. "Give 's a chaw o' yer smokin' plug, Mr. Callahan," and he held out his hand.
Callahan emptied the hot ashes from his black pipe into the open palm.
"'Tis what ye get f'r yer impidunce, an' f'r layin' tongue to ould man Durgan, ye scut. 'Tis none av his doin's—the dhirty oil an' the chape waste an' the jacket lamps. It's ay-conomy, me son; an' the other name f'r that is a rayceiver."
"Is Durgan with us?" asked Brodrick.
"He's wit' himself, as a master-mechanic shu'd be," said Callahan. "So's M'Tosh. But nayther wan n'r t'other av thim'll take a thrain out whin the strike's on. They're both Loring min."
At the mention of Loring's name Griggs looked up from the stick he was whittling.
"No prospects o' the Boston folks getting the road back again, I reckon," he remarked tentatively.
"You should read dose Arkoos newsbapers: den you should know somet'ings alretty, ain'd it?" said Tischer.