“Yes, I do,” cried Dinass. “Don’t you be so precious handy sending people where they don’t want to go. Why don’t you go yourself?”
“How can I go?” said the engineer, sharply. “My dooty’s here. Can you manage the skep and rope?”
“How do I know till I try?” growled Dinass.
“Try? Why, you’d be doing some mischief. I’ve no right to leave my work while anyone’s down, and I won’t leave it; but I’d go if I was free.”
“Tom Dinass will go,” said Joe. “You can’t leave us in the lurch like this.”
“’Course not: it’s his gammon,” cried a man at the opening into the shed-like place. “You’ll go, mate.”
“Ay, he’ll go,” rose in chorus.
“No, he won’t,” said Dinass, angrily. “I get five-and-twenty shilling a week for working here, not for going to chuck away my life.”
“Gahn!” shouted a man. “Your life aren’t worth more nor no one else’s. Who are you?”
“Never you mind who I am,” growled Dinass, “I aren’t going to chuck away my life, and so I tell you.”