“He was. Came in on a construction train, looking for a job, and when we saw he was from the old country we put him on.”
“You put him on? Don’t these things rest with the division boss?”
The man grinned.
“You don’t understand. We’re specialists and get what we ask for. Sent the boss word we wanted an assistant, and, as we’d picked one up, all he had to do was to put him on the pay-roll.”
“And did Kermode get through his work satisfactorily?”
“For a while. He was a handy man; might have made a boiler-maker if he’d took to it young. When we had nothing else to keep him busy, he’d cut tobacco for us and set us laughing with his funny talk.”
This was much in keeping with Jernyngham’s character. But the man went on:
“When we’d made him a pretty good hand with the file and drill, he got Bill to teach him how to caulk. He shaped first-rate, so one day we thought we’d leave him to it while we went off for a jaunt. Bill had bought an old shot-gun from a farmer, and we’d seen a lot of wild hens about.”
“It would be close time—you can only shoot them in October; but I suppose that wouldn’t count.”
“Not a bit,” said the boiler-maker. “All we were afraid of was that a train might come in with the boss on board; but we chanced it. We told Kermode he might go round the tank-plate landings—the laps, you know—with the caulker, and give them a rough tuck in, ready for us to finish; and then we went off. Well, we didn’t shoot any wild hens, though Bill got some pellets in his leg, and when we came back we both felt pretty bad when we saw what Kermode had done. Bill couldn’t think of names enough to call him, and he’s good at it.”