“That’s right,” he said. “Stay there now. It’s goin’ to be so hot in here that some o’ yuh’ll be goin’ off yer heads. Yuh don’t want to do that. Yuh want to hang on, see? Keep still an’ hang on. An’ if yuh feel yerself goin’ loose, get a hold o’ the floor, anyway, an’ don’t let go.” He took up the engineer’s hammer, stepped down to the door, and put his back against it. “I’ll brain any man that tries to open this door before I give the word,” he said. They were a mixed lot--Keighley’s crew--picked from all the battalions in the city to serve on the new _Hudson_. There was “Shine” Conlin, a blue-jowled Bowery type, who had been newsboy, boot-black, (whence the “Shine”) wharf-rat, deck-hand, plug-ugly and leader of his gang; he had come into the department from the ranks of the “Con Scully Association” to earn a regular salary for the support of “th’ ol’ crow,” his mother; and he was the most aggressive “Jigger” in the company. Even now, he did not obey Keighley’s orders. Instead of lying down, he sat up against a shaft bearing; and instead of covering his mouth, he filled it with “fine-cut” from a package in his hip pocket and tried to chew it nonchalantly. His mouth was so dry that he felt as if he were trying to chew excelsior; it was tasteless. He turned it over and over in his jaw, until it was pulverized, like chaff. Then he blew it out, with an oath. At his feet lay a huge truck driver named Nicholas Sturton and nicknamed “The Tur’ble Turk.” He was of the captain’s faction, because he was by nature loyal to appointed authority and solemnly conscientious in the fulfilment of all his duties. He had tied the red rags of a bandana handkerchief over his mouth and plugged his hairy nostrils with the cotton waste; and his eyes stared and his great chest heaved in his efforts to breathe through his gag. When he looked at Keighley, it was with the mute and patient appeal of a big boy, in pain, looking at the doctor who is watching over his suffering. Lieutenant Moore, like “Shine,” was sitting, but with his head in his hands, the cotton waste forgotten in them, his mouth fallen open. He had had a good education in the public schools; he was cursed with the imagination of the trained mind; and he suffered all the horrors of death every time he gasped. He was ready to weep with pity for himself, but his tears dried up before they reached his scorched eyelids. He was the pride of his parents, and the dominant note of his self pity was a sympathy for them in their disappointment in his end. “A hell of a finish,” he was saying to himself. “Here’s a hell of a finish.”