It was after a particularly hard day’s work and because of some special conditions that I managed finally to reach a decision, which, however much it may have benefited me, helped them in no least way. We had been mixing concrete and, a touch of my old cynical uncertainty dominating me, I had been driving them all the day long, urging one to shovel faster, calling to another to bring the wheelbarrows of stone almost before they were needed, sending this one for water and that one for cement, until the men were running about like ants. About four o’clock of this long day it began to rain. It had been gray and lowery all day but now the moisture descended in a fine drizzle and we were compelled to work or leave unfinished the batch of concrete we were just beginning. In a sullen mood, because of my own dreary part in this, I stood and held them to their task, not caring much what became of them or myself either, until at last the work was completed. At dusk, damp and dreary, I took my lunch-box and tramped doggedly along the tracks toward the depot, comforted by one thought only: that the day was over and I myself was free. It was at that hour when the traffic outward from the great city assumes its most imposing aspect. Along this magnificent highway of steel were speeding the trains of one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. Limiteds were passing, their splendid interiors aglow with half a hundred lights. Seemingly more prosperous citizens than we were reclining there in comfort. Others were gazing out idly. The dining cars of various trains were set with silver and white linen. As I paused near the station to turn my eye on this truly appealing scene and to gather its significance as contrasted with that which I had just left, there passed by, going in my direction, the little procession of Italians over whom I ruled, bearing with them the tools with which they had been laboring. There was Philip, whom I had often noted as I stood beside the trench in which he was working, his body all twisted and bent from long years of unremitting toil; there was Angelo, old and leathern in feature, whose one boast was that he had never missed a day’s work in seventeen years; there was Matteo, thin, spare, worn-looking, whose eye was alight with a kindly humor and whose willingness to work I had never been able to question; there were John and Collarbrace (as we called one Calabrian), Mussolin and Jimmie, all trudging patiently onward like cattle, the day of their labor having brought forth nothing but a night of weariness.