“I don’t blame these fellers for striking,” said one. “They’ve got the right of it, all right, but I had to get something to do.”
“Same here,” said the other. “If I had any job in Newark I wouldn’t be over here takin’ chances like these.”
“It’s hell these days, ain’t it?” said the man. “A poor man ain’t nowhere. You could starve, by God, right in the streets, and there ain’t most no one would help you.”
“Right you are,” said the other. “The job I had I lost ’cause they shut down. They run all summer and lay up a big stock, and then shut down.”
Hurstwood paid some little attention to this. Somehow, he felt a little superior to these two—a little better off. To him these were ignorant and commonplace, poor sheep in a driver’s hand.
“Poor devils,” he thought, speaking out of the thoughts and feelings of a bygone period of success.
“Next,” said one of the instructors.
“You’re next,” said a neighbour, touching him.
He went out and climbed on the platform. The instructor took it for granted that no preliminaries were needed.
“You see this handle,” he said, reaching up to an electric cut-off, which was fastened to the roof. “This throws the current off or on. If you want to reverse the car you turn it over here. If you want to send it forward, you put it over here. If you want to cut off the power, you keep it in the middle.”