At the dinner-bucket hour in the shanty, I was asked by John the Italian: "How much you pay for suit, Charlie?" I was embarrassed, fearing vaguely explanations that might have to follow a declaration of price. I suddenly recalled the fact that the suit had been given me by my brother, so that I didn't know the price, and said so. "My brother give me suit, I don't know how much he pay," I said. That dumped me into another quandary. "What job your brother have?" I was immediately asked. I thought a moment and answered truthfully again. "My brother, priest," I said. That arrested immediate attention, and I was looked at with respect and curiosity. Tony finally said, "Why you no be priest, Charlie?" "Oh," I answered, laughing, "I run away; I like raise hell too much be priest." This was pretty accurate, too. "O Charlie!" they bellowed. After that, the gang were friends to the death. VII DUST, HEAT, AND COMRADESHIP One day I was promoted to stove-tender or hot-blast man on Number 6. The keeper of the furnace was a negro. When he was rebuilding the runways for the tapped metal, I noticed that his movements were sure and practised. He patted and shaped the mud-clay in the runway, like a potter moulding a vessel. When it was tap time, he bored the tap hole with the electric drill easily and neatly; when the metal flowed, he knew the exact moment to lift the gates for drawing away slag. I watched him to see how he managed the four white men that worked for him. They were Austrians, and I found they joked together and showed no resentment of status. Commands were given with a nod or gesture. With the Americans on the furnace, the relation was the traditional one. The negro was light and seemed too slightly built for the job, but he performed it very efficiently, and so did his gang. The blower was Old McLanahan, a man somewhere between thirty-five and sixty. A long, successful life of inebriety had given him a certain resignation to the ills of man, and enabled him to keep the heart of a viveur throughout his life. His skin appeared thrown like a bag over an assemblage of loosely fitted bones--the only considerable part of him being a paunch which coursed forward into a moderate point. He was rather proud of being a blower on furnace No. 6. After the slag had been sampled he said: "Where d'ye eat, boy?" "I eat at Mrs. Farrell's." "How much?" "Seven a week." "Too much. Pretty goddam good is it?" "Damn good food," I said. "Is Mrs. Farrell a widder woman?" "No," I said, "she's not." "Well," he said, "if you hear of a damn fine little widder woman, let me know will yer?" "Sure," I said. "I'm lookin' for a place ter board, and most of all I'm lookin' for a little widder woman ter honor wid holy matrimony." After tapping that morning at 8.00, McLanahan took a silver dollar out of his pocket. "If it comes heads," he said, "I'm goin' out to-night, see, I'm goin' out ter find a woman."