“And listen,” continued Joe, pleased to see that Wayne was interested, “the gayest that happened was about old Isidore, the Jew ole-clothes man, who had a row with the rabbi. He had it in for the rabbi good and strong and he got a pair of pig’s feet and slipped ’em under the rabbi’s chair in the synagogue, which was against the religion, and oh, my, some of the members of that church got after Isidore and was goin’ to make ’im into a burnt sacrifice all right. But Father Jim hid ’im in the cellar at the parish house and went to square it with the rabbi. You might think, them not bein’ members of the same church, and viewin’ matters quite different, they’d give each other the razzle; but Father Jim umpired the row all right and Isidore buys his meat at the kosher shop now, which is proper, Father Jim says, him bein’ a Jew, which is a great race, he says. Shall I crank the buzz wagon?” Guided by a pillar of cloud that wavered against the stars of the keen, autumn night, the motor sped on toward Ironstead. The black pall was lighted fitfully by fierce gusts of flame; golden showers of sparks rose ceaselessly, fountain-like, and gave a glory and charm to the scene. At one point there fell on Wayne’s ears the mighty cymbal-crash of hammers, now ringing clear and resonant, and lost again in a moment in other tumults of the valley. The spectacle, the sounds, spoke with a new language to his imagination. Here was the most stupendous thing in the world, this forging of the power of the hills into implements and structures and weapons for man’s use. The steel frames of towering buildings, the ribs of swift ships, the needle that sews the finest seam--these were all born of this uproar. Wayne stood up in the motor to peer upon figures that moved about in a glare of flame as though on a great stage set for a fantastic drama. He knew the practical side of these smelting and forging and riveting processes; but it suited his mood to-night to think of them as part of some tremendous phantasmagoria. He singled out one dark Titan as the chief actor, and named him Vulcan; and these were his slaves, these shadowy shapes that swung the brimming crucibles on huge cranes or manipulated with ease the long glowing bars that might have been the prop and stay of some fiery-hearted Ætna. What could it all mean to these hurrying, leaping men, the discordant hymn of the hammers, the terrible heat, the infernal beat and clash, the nerve-wracking cry of the saws as they severed the hot bars, the venomous, serpent-like hissing that marked the last protest of the rebellious ore against these tyrants who had wrested it from earth’s jealous treasuries.