Again, half an hour later, stopping at the elbow of another apprentice, a little older than the last: “Come,” said the foreman, “that’s a noo idea, that is! Takin’ auf the skin from cast iron with a bran’ noo file! I ’ope you’ve patented it. An’ I ’ope you won’t come an’ want another file in about ’alf an hour, ’cos if you do you won’t git it!” Whereat Johnny, astonished to learn that cast iron had a skin, resolved not to forget that you shouldn’t take it off with a new file, and made a mental note to ask somebody why. Presently, as he came by the long fitting-bench, Johnny grew aware of a fitter, immensely tall and very thin, who grinned and nodded in furtive recognition. It was, indeed, the next door lodger, who had painted the cornice. He was very large, Johnny thought, to be so shy; he positively blushed as he grinned. “You come to this shop?” he asked in his odd whisper, as he stooped to judge the fit of his work. “I’m beddin’ down a junk ring; p’raps the gaffer’ll put you to ’elp me after breakfast.” Bedding down a junk ring sounded advanced and technical, and Johnny felt taller at the prospect. He would learn what a junk ring was, probably, when he had to help bed it down. Meanwhile he watched the tall man, as he brought the metal to an exact face. “Stop in to breakfast?” the man asked, as he stooped again. “Yes.” “Some o’ the boys ’ll try a game with ye, p’raps. Don’t mind a little game, do ye?” “No.” “Ah, I couldn’t stand it when I was a lad. Made me mis’rable. When ye go in the smiths’ shop to git yer breakfast, look about ye, if they’re special kind findin’ y’ a seat. Up above, f’r instance.” Johnny left the long man, and presently observed that the foreman was not in the shop. There was an instant slackness perceivable among the younger and less steady men, for the leading hand had no such authority as Cottam. One man at a lathe, throwing out his gear examined his work, and, turning to Johnny, said, “Look ’ere, me lad; I want to true this ’ere bit. Jes’ you go an’ ask Sam Wilkins—that man up at the end there, in the serge jacket—jes’ you go an’ ask ’im for the round square.” Johnny knew the tool called a square, used for testing the truth of finished work, though he had never seen a round one. Howbeit he went off with alacrity: but it seemed that Sam Wilkins hadn’t the round square. It was Joe Mills, over in the far corner. So he tried Joe Mills; but he, it seemed, had just lent it to Bob White, at the biggest shaping-machine near the other end. Bob White understood perfectly, but thought he had last seen the round square in the possession of George Walker. Whereas George Walker was perfectly certain that it had gone downstairs to Bill Cook in the big shop. Doubting nothing from the uncommonly solemn faces of Sam and Joe and Bob and George, Johnny set off down the stone stairs, where he met the ascending gaffer, on his way back from the pattern-maker’s shop. “’Ullo boy,” he said, “where you goin’?”