At the landlady's remark he had blushed and addressed me frankly:
"Say, I work to de 'Lights.'"
(Lights! Can such a word be expressive of the factory which has daily blackened and scarred and dulled this human instrument?)
"To the 'Lights,' and it ain't no cinch, I can tell you! I got to keep movin'. Every minute I'm late I get docked for wages—it's a day's work to the 'Lights.' When she calls me at six—why, I don't turn over and snooze another! I just turn right out. I walk two miles to my shop—and every man in his place at 6:45! Don't you forgit it!"
He cleaned his plate of food.
"I jest keep movin' all de time."
He wiped his mouth—rose unceremoniously, put on his pot-like derby ajaunt, lit a vile cigar, slipped into a miserable old coat, and was gone, the odour of his weed blending its new smell with kitchen fumes.
He is one of the absolutely real creatures I have ever seen. Of his likeness types of crime are drawn. Maurice—blade keen-edged, hidden in its battered sheath, its ugly case—terrible yet attractive speci
men of strength and endurance—Youth and Manhood in you are bound to labour as on the rack, and in the ordeal you keep (as does the mass of humanity) Silence!
Eat by this man's side, heap his plate with coarse victuals, feel the touch of his flannel sleeve against your own flannel blouse, see his look of brotherhood as he says: