“What's your lay, after breakfast?” he asked, as they came to the last log together.
“Lay?” repeated Lemuel.
“What you goin' to do?”
“I don't know; I can't tell yet.”
“You know,” said the other, “you can come back here, and get your dinner, if you want to saw wood for it from ten till twelve, and you get your supper if you'll saw from five to six.”
“Are you going to do that?” asked Lemuel cautiously.
“No, sir,” said the other; “I can't spare the time. I'm goin' to fill up for all day, at breakfast, and then I'm goin' up to lay round on the Common till it's time to go to the Police Court; and when that's over I'm goin' back to the Common ag'in, and lay round the rest of the day. I hain't got any leisure for no such nonsense as wood-sawin'. I don't mind the work, but I hate to waste the time. It's the way with most o' the pardners, unless it's the green hands. That so, pards?”
Some of them had already gone in to breakfast; the smell of the stew came out to the wood-yard through the open door. Lemuel and his friend finished their last stick at the same time, and went in together, and found places side by side at the table in the waiting-room. The attendant within its oblong was serving the men with heavy quart bowls of the steaming broth. He brought half a loaf of light, elastic bread with each, and there were platters of hard-tack set along the board, which every one helped himself from freely, and broke into his broth.
“Morning, Jimmy,” said the mate, as the man brought him and Lemuel their portions. “I hate to have the dining-room chairs off a paintin' when there's so much style about everything else, and I've got a visitor with me. But I tell him he'll have to take us as he finds us, and stand it this mornin'.” He wasted no more words on his joke, but plunging his large tin spoon into his bowl, kept his breath to cool his broth, blowing upon it with easy grace, and swallowing it at a tremendous rate, though Lemuel, after following his example, still found it so hot that it brought the tears into his eyes. It was delicious, and he was ravenous from his twenty-four hours' fast, but his companion was scraping the bottom of his bowl before Lemuel had got half-way down, and he finished his second as Lemuel finished his first.
“Just oncet more for both of us, Jimmy,” he said, pushing his bowl across the board; and when the man brought them back he said, “Now, I'm goin' to take it easy and enjoy myself. I can't never seem to get the good of it, till about the third or fourth bowl. Too much of a hurry.”