A sharp-eyed, energetic American, who superintends the gangs of unskilled laborers, took me on, and at once assigned me to duty under an Irish sub-boss by the name of O’Shea. When I became one of its number, Mr. O’Shea’s gang of eight or ten men had torn up a considerable section of the plank road near the Transportation Building, for the purpose of altering the level. Most of us were put in charge of wheel-barrows. These we filled with sand at a neighboring pile and then emptied it in heaps on the road-bed, while the remaining members of the gang spread the sand with shovels to the desired depth before replacing the planks. It was a cloudy morning early in April, with a cold, raw wind blowing in from the lake, and the work, not very fatiguing in itself, kept one comfortably warm until noon. We had a free hour for dinner then, and I simply accompanied the other gang-men to “Hotel No. 1,” where my employment ticket, issued by the general superintendent of construction, procured for me without delay a meal-and-lodging ticket on trust. A large, zinc-lined trough half full of water stood against the wall in an ante-chamber. Here men by the score were washing their hands and faces and drying them near by on roller towels. They then passed singly through the wicket at the dining-room door, where stood a man who punched each boarder’s ticket as he entered. Long wooden tables, heaped with dishes and lined with round-bottom stools, ran the great length of the room. The men took places in the order of their coming, until they had filled one table, when they would begin upon another, and there arose a deafening clatter of knives and forks and dishes and a tumult of mingled speech.