"I'd stand up Driscoll in the middle o' the road to hell, then knock off workin' forever. When they seen him standin' there every blamed sinner'd turn back with a yell an' stretch their legs for the other road."
"I wonder if Tom'll speak to him about them scabs," said another man, with a scowl at a couple of men working along the building's edge.
"That ain't Tom's business, Bill," answered Pete. "It's Rivet Head's. Tom don't like Driscoll any more'n the rest of us do, an' he ain't goin' to say any more to him'n he has to."
"Tom ought to call him down, anyhow," Bill declared.
"You let Foley do that," put in Jake Henderson, a big fellow with a stubbly face and a scar across his nose.
"An' let him peel off a little graft!" sneered Bill.
"Close yer face!" growled Jake.
"Come on there, boys, an' get that crane around!" shouted Barry.
Pete, Bill, and Jake sprang to the wooden lever that extended from the base of the ninety-foot mast; and they threw their weight against the bar, bending it as a bow. The crane slowly turned on its bearings to the desired position. Barry, the "pusher" (under foreman), waved his outstretched hand. The signalman, whose eyes had been alert for this movement, pulled a rope; a bell rang in the ears of an engineer, twenty-one floors below. The big boom slowly came down to a horizontal position, its outer end twenty feet clear of the building's edge. Another signal, and the heavy iron pulley began to descend to the street.
After the pulley had started to slide down its rope there was little for the men to do till it had climbed back up the rope with its burden of steel. Pete—who was usually addressed as "Pig Iron," perhaps for the reason that he claimed to be from Pittsburg—settled back at his ease among the gang, his back against a pile of columns, his legs stretched out.