"That's Ned Quin's nickname up to Kamloops," said Jack Mottram.
"Our man's brother?"
"Him," said Jack. He picked his teeth with a fork and Long Mac eyed him with disgust.
"I know Ned, he's tough."
But Jack was tough himself: he had been salted in all the seas and sun-dried on all the beaches of the rough round world. He made short stays everywhere: passages not voyages: skippers were glad to give him his discharge, for after sixty days at sea he sickened for the land and became hot cargo.
"Oh, I'm tough enough," he would prelude some yarn with.
Now Shorty Gibbs spoke, he of the Shingle Mill. Lately the Shingle Mill had annexed half a thumb of his as it screamed out to him. "He's a son of a——"
He completed the sentence in the approved round manner.
They all admitted that Quin the Manager was Tough, but that Ned Quin of Kamloops was tougher admitted not a doubt.
They swept the food from the table. Just as the logs were divided by the Saws and fell into various Chutes and disappeared, so the food went here. Most of the men ate like hogs (the better Americans least like): they yaffled, they gurgled, they sweated over the chewing and got over it.