"If his widow could learn to distribute type she could do mighty well over here. I'd give her 4,000 to throw in every day," says Slug 10. "Oh, let go of that towel!"
The men return to their cases, put on their coats and wrap their white throats. This pneumonia is a bad thing, anyhow.
Tramp, tramp, the small army goes down the long, iron stairways.
"Did you hear about Corkey?" they ask as they go. "Corkey had a heart in him like an ox."
"Bet he had," echoes up from the nethermost iron stairway.
CHAPTER IV
THE BRIDEGROOM
Esther Lockwin's wedding day is at hand. Her mansion is this afternoon a suite of odorous bowers. Happy the man who may be secure in her affection!
Such a man is George Harpwood. Let the November mists roll in from Lake Michigan. "It is no bed out there for me," thinks the bridegroom, whose other days have often been gloomy enough in November.
Let the smoke of the tall chimneys tumble into the streets and pirouette backward and forward in black eddies, giving to the city an aspect forbidding to even the manner-born. George Harpwood feels no mist. He sees no smoke. It is the tide of industry. It is the earnest of Esther's five millions.