Quite nonchalantly Mr. Bates, puffing at a particularly villainous stogie and with his hands resting idly in his pockets, swung after Mr. Ripley, keeping within almost precisely four feet of him. In the boiler-room, Ripley, finding Biff still at his heels, said to the fireman, with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder:
“Rocksey, be sure you keep a good head of steam on to-night if you’re a friend of mine. This is Mr. Assistant Works back here, and he’s come in to knock my block off if the lights flicker.”
“Rocksey,” a lean man with gray beard-bristles like pins and with muscles in astounding lumps upon his grimy arms, surveyed Mr. Bates with a grin which meant volumes.
“Ring a bell when it starts, will you, Con?” he requested.
To this Biff paid not the slightest attention, gazing stolidly at the red fire where it shone through the holes of the furnace doors; but when Mr. Ripley moved away Biff moved also. Ripley introduced Biff in much the same terms to a tall man who was oiling the big, old-fashioned Corliss, and a sudden gleam came into the tall man’s eyes as he recognized Mr. Bates, but he turned back to his oiling without smile or comment. Ripley eyed him sharply.
“You’ll hold the sponge and water-bottle for me, won’t you, Daly?” he asked, with an evident attempt at jovial conciliation.
Daly deliberately wiped the slender nose of his oil can and went on oiling.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ripley with a frown. “Got a grouch again?”
“Yes, I have,” admitted Daly without looking up, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Then cut it out,” said Ripley, “and look real unpeeved when somebody hands you tickets to the circus.”