We closed the doors of the car, sat in a far corner and munched our bread and cold meat as if it had been a luxury from a king’s banquet table. Then after our meal, in spite of the chilliness of the car, we stretched ourselves on our backs and gave our strained, worn muscles the opportunity of relaxation.
“How do you feel?” Brock demanded after an interminable silence.
“Cold, tired, weary and sick!” I replied, throwing the mask off. “Let us either wheel that old barrow again or go back to the University.”
“Well,” muttered Brock, dispiritedly, “our backs can’t really get much worse, Priddy. We might as well finish a day’s work. If we leave now we’ll be unfit for work for another week anyway. We might as well get all we can out of it while we are about it.”
“Oh, that barrow! If it were a thing of flesh I’d stab it for my worst enemy!” I cried.
“We worked too steadily,” suggested Brock. “We were too ambitious. We’ll loaf along this afternoon and take more frequent rests. You pack the bricks for awhile. I’ll wheel!”
“Lucky you proposed to wheel first,” I muttered, “for I’d have gone on strike if I’d been the first.”
Brock looked knowingly at me, showed me the blisters on his hands and said,
“I know just how you feel!”
Numb, dispirited, weary and backsore, we worked until four o’clock in the afternoon. At that time, Brock was just coming across the bridge with a reduced load, staggering under it. I called out to him,