I had to wait a while for him to remove all but those needful garments before starting for the kitchen, there to find good hot coffee and a dish of that same thick soup.
He followed my lead again, silently, deliberately drinking two cups of coffee and eating the soup. Then it was time for us to go.
He negotiated the several narrow iron stairs leading down to the boiler-room like a cat avoiding water, and looked ruefully at his hands blackened by contact with the greasy handrail. A pink silk undershirt and polished shoes contrasted strangely with the coarse, black pull-on's and dingy brogans of those at work. He must have noticed the contrast. Stripped, he showed a compact figure, with good lung capacity and likely a good heart, that being an absolute necessity in order to tolerate the extreme heat of a boiler-room.
The engineer on watch asked me if I had ever fired, as though expecting an affirmative.
"Yes," I replied.
"But this young fellow is a 'greeny'?"
"Yes—I think so."
"You and him take the two end boilers on the left—they are as cool as any—and give him a few tips, will you, till he gets his hand in? Two hundred and eighty pounds on the gauge," he added, as a hint to keep the dial at that notch. He then told Strong I would show him what to do.
As we moved down over the piles of coal between a battery of boilers facing the rather narrow corridor between them, Strong remarked to me, "I'll do the best I can, sir!"
It did not seem so very hot when we first went in, but I noticed there was only one ventilator, which came down about midway.