"Well, I can't stay here gassin' all night, lady. I must hike along soon to get the Frisco train.... What do you care about it anyway, whether the strikes are our fault or not? You've got plenty of the stuff, and we little folks ain't got nothin' but what we earn, and that ought to satisfy you. We must work for you sometimes, and you don't have to do a damn thing for anybody no times. You've got the luck, and we ain't! See? And that's about all there is to it."
Adelle felt that so far as her own case went, the man had come remarkably near the truth. The mason turned, with an afterthought.
"And I'm not whinin' 'bout it neither, remember that! I can always earn enough to keep me goin' and get whiskey when I want it."
He said it with a touch of pride, his workman's boast that he was beholden to no one for meat or drink. It was more than Archie could say now or at any time in his life.
"Are you married?" Adelle asked, feeling that if there was a woman in the situation another line of argument might be used.
"Married! Hell, no! What do I want of being married?"
Married men, Adelle had heard, were likely to be steadier workers than the unmarried. Also more what her class called "moral."
"I should think you would want to have your own home and children in it," she ventured.
The mason gave her an ironical look full of meaning.
"That would sure be nice, if I could always give 'em plenty to eat and education, the same as you can. But what can a man do with a wife when he's here to-day and off to the other end of the land to-morrow lookin' for a job? A steady job in one place where it's fit for a woman to live ain't to be found every day.... A workingman who marries, unless he's got money in the bank and a sure payin' job that'll last, is a fool or worse. What good is it to bring children into the world to be like him or maybe worse?"