“Would you tackle that?” he asked.
“Oh,” said Thane, “then that ain’t it.” In his tone was a sense of disappointment that answered John’s question. Of course he would tackle it.
They drove slowly past the Keystone, past dump heaps, sand lots, a row of unpainted, upside down boxes called houses, and came at length to a group of rude sheds, one large one and four small ones. One of the small ones, open in front like a wood-shed, was filled with empty nail kegs in tiers.
The front door of the big central shed was propped shut with an iron bar. John kicked it away, pulled the door open, and they went in. A figure rose out of the dimness, asking, “What’d ye want?”
“Are you Coleman’s caretaker?” John asked. Coleman was the name of the bankrupt.
“Yep,” said the man.
So this was the mill.
“We’ve bought him out,” said John. “Want to have a look at the plant.”
“Help yourself.”
They walked about silently on the earthen, scrap littered floor. A nail mill, as nail mills were at that time, was not much to look at, and a cold iron working plant of any kind has a bygone, extinct appearance. Thane had never seen a cold mill. He was horribly depressed. Gradually their eyes grew used to the dimness. The equipment consisted of an overloaded driving engine, one small furnace for heating iron bars, a train of rolls for reducing the bars to sheets the thickness of nails and five automatic machines for cutting nails from the sheet like cookies,—all in bad to fair condition.