I decided on a day off. John had lately taken one for the festival at New Naples, and had come in to work the next morning with the wine still at festivals in his head. Sitting atop the blast-furnaces the other day, looking at the blue rivers and the three hills, and speculating about men going down to the sea in ships--because of the fat river-boat we could see--had made me sicken of the smell of flue-dust. I decided to take a day off. Sometimes the foreman, when you got back after cutting a turn, would say, "I don't believe you want this job; you like loafing better; I'll give it to Jimmy." But with a seven-day week, only the mean ones hollered. Men took an occasional holiday. I ate breakfast with a very conscious leisure at George's, putting down scrambled eggs, at 8.00 o'clock, instead of the coffee and toast at 5.15 A.M. "No work to-day," said George; "lotza mon', eh?" "Wrong," said I. "Mebbe you see best girl to-day." "Guess again." "Married?" "No." "Mr. Vincent's wife is sick," said George, changing the subject. "Oh, I'm sorry." "He no work to-day; come in here for breakfast, ten minutes before you." Vincent was a young American, twenty-one or two, whose brother I had known in college. He had not gone himself, but took a straw boss's job in the pipe mill. He had married six months before, and his wife lived with him in two rooms in Bickford Lodge--the other hotel in Bouton. We went to the movies together sometimes, and often met for supper at the Greek's. I looked for Vincent, and found him reading the "Saturday Evening Post" in the front room. "Elizabeth is sick," he explained. "I'm sticking around to-day." We fell to talking mill. "What hours do you work now?" I asked. "Six to six." "You get up at five." "Yes, about that." "That's not true, Philip," came over the transom from the sick room. "I set the alarm at four-thirty, Phil sleeps till five-thirty, drinks one cup of coffee, leaves his eggs, and catches the twenty-of-six car." "You now have the story," said Phil. "It's a stinking long day, isn't it?" "Phil has it all figured out," Elizabeth shouted from the back room. "From six to nine, he pays his rent--" "Yes, I've figured it that way," he said. "The money I earn between nine and one is enough to pay my day's board and my wife's; one to three is clothes and shoes; three to five, all other expenses; five to six I work for myself!" "That's bully; I think I'll figure mine." "But there aren't any evenings, are there," he went on, "or any Sundays?" Suddenly he looked up at the chandelier. "See all the pipes in that," he said; "I find pipes and tubes everywhere, since I've worked in the mill. It's darn interesting to pick them out. The radiator in this room is made of pipe, see; the bed in the back room; notice those banisters outside. I see them everywhere I look. If I had a little money, I'd put it in a pipe mill. 'S money in that game, once you get the market; Coglin and I have it all doped out."