The job he was bossing was not very intricate or important, but it was interesting. It consisted of digging a trench ten by twelve feet, and shaping it up with boards into a "form," after which concrete was to be mixed and poured in, and some iron rods set to fasten the engine to--an engine bed, no less. It was not so urgent but that it might have been conducted with far less excitement, but what are you to do when you are naturally excitable, love to make a great noise, and feel that things are going forward whether they are or not? Plainly this particular individual loved noise and a great stir. So eager was he to have done with it, no matter what it was or where, that he was constantly trotting to and fro, shouting, "Come, Matt! Come, Jimmie! Hurry, now, bring the shovels! Bring the picks!" and occasionally bursting forth with a perfect avalanche of orders. "Up with it! Down with it! Front with it! Back with it! In with it! Out with it!" all coupled with his favorite expletive, "Jasus Christ," which was as innocent of evil, I subsequently came to know, as a prayer. In short, he was simply wild Irish, and that was all there was to him--a delightful specimen, like Namgay Doola. But, as I say, at the time he seemed positively appalling to me, a virulent specimen, and I thought, "The Irish brute! To think of human beings having to work for a brute like that! To think of his driving men like that!" However, I soon began to discover that he was not so bad as he seemed, and then I began to like him. The thing that brought about this swift change of feeling in me was the attitude of his men toward him. Although he was so insistent with his commands, they did not seem to mind nor to strain themselves working. They were not killing themselves, by any means. He would stand over them, crying, "Up with it! Up with it! Up with it! Up with it!" or "Down with it! Down with it! Down with it!" until you would have imagined their nerves would be worn to a frazzle. As it was, however, they did not seem to care any more than you would for the ticking of a clock; rather, they appeared to take it as a matter of course, something that had to be, and that one was prepared for. Their steps were in the main as leisurely as those of idlers on Fifth Avenue or Broadway. They carried boards or stone as one would objects of great value. One could not help smiling at the incongruity of it; it was farcical. Finally gathering the full import of it all, I ventured to laugh, and he turned on me with a sharp and yet not unkindly retort. "Ha! ha! ha!" he mocked. "If ye had to work as hard as these min, ye wouldn't laugh." I wanted to say, "Hard work, indeed!" but instead I replied, "Is that so? Well, I don't see that they're killing themselves, or you either. You're not as fierce as you sound."