"What I sent for you for, Ignatz, was to ask you about some of the other mills. I have not been here long enough to know about them. Will you tell me what the other mills are, and whom to see? I am going to try to get a job."
Brodsky named the independent mills. There were ten of them in all. He knew the names of some of the foremen, and said he would get the names that he did not know.
"You want me more?" demanded the Pole, rising abruptly.
"No, but we should like to have you spend the evening with us, if you have no other place to go," said Steve.
Brodsky shook his head.
"Must go home split the wood for my mother. She take a club to me if I don't. I see you bimeby, mebby to-night, mebby the day after to-morrow."
The boy turned and left the room at a trot. Bob laughed heartily after he had gone.
"There's an odd lad," he said.
"He's true-blue, Bob. Under all his stolidness he is every inch a man, as I have said many times before. He is more cut up over our hard luck than we are. I hope he doesn't try to induce Kalinski to take us back. That would please the pit boss, because he would think we had asked Ignatz to intercede for us. I would rather never have a job again than to ask either of those three men to take us back."