FullReads

“The divil! and don’t it kill thim?”

“Naw. They come back and sweat it out. They couldn’t wurruk like this widout it.”

“It’s great work, Mike. Look at the devilopment. Did ye iver see a prize-fighter with such muscles?”

“A prize-fighter!” said Mike. “Jawn Murphy, luk at them. They’re all sizes, big and little, in my two gangs; but give the littlest a month’s trainin’ in the science o’ boxin’ and he’d lick any heavyweight in the wurruld. Ye see, ye simply can’t hurt ’em.”

“Can’t hurt ’em?”

“Ye can’t hurt ’em. They’re not human. They’re wild beasts. They come from the hills and bogs of Limerick and Galway, and they can’t speak the language, but call themselves Irishmin. Well, Jawn, they’re Irish, mebbe, as the American Injun’s an American; but they’re not like you and me, dacent min from Dublin.”

“But if they can’t speak the language, how do ye git on wid ’em?”

“Once in a while, when they’re cool and tranquil, I get on to a word or two, but usually I fall back on moral suasion and the sign language.”

“Moral suasion?”

“I swear at ’em. And thin, whin that fails, I use the sign language. That’s good in talkin’ to any foreigner, Jawn.”

“But what is it, the sign language?”

“A brick. See this, Jawn?” Mike held up one side of his coat, and John felt of an oblong protuberance in the right-hand pocket. “I carry a brick at all times, Jawn, for it’s the only thing that appeals to their sinsibilities. I used to carry a club, but it didn’t wurruk; they’d get back at me wid their shovels, and it’s domned inconvanient, Jawn, to be sliced up wid a shovel. So, I carry a brick.”

“Do they git that way often?”

“Yis; it’s their natural condition. They’d rather fight than ate, and I don’t dare hire a man from another county in one gang, for fear they’ll kill him; so this is the Galway gang, and up the dock a bit is the Limerick gang, twilve min to each. They’re all alike, but think they’re different, so I have to be careful. But, while they’d rather fight than ate, they’d rather wurruk than fight, and that’s where I come in. I kape ’em apart, and stir up their jealousy. Each gang ‘ll wurruk like hill to bate the other.”

“And what do ye pay thim?”

“By the job. They stick to factory hours, and won’t wurruk overtime, but at tin hours a day they make about eight dollars.”

“The divil! But that’s big pay.”

“Yis; but I have to pay it, for no other class o’ min can do the wurruk. Why, it ‘ud kill an American or a Dootchman!”

“They must have money saved up.”

“All that they don’t spind at me bar up on the corner. They have to save some, for in the nature o’ things I can’t git it all back. And they’re all goin’ back to the old sod whin navigation closes–in about two weeks. This’ll be about their last job.”

“They’ll come to New York and take passage, I suppose.”

“Yis; and I’ll have to buy their tickets and ship thim. They don’t know much about American money, and wid a new man I have to pay him in English money at first, until he finds it’s no good; thin I exchange at a discount.”

“Fine, Mike; ye’ll be rich before long.”

“That I will, if the supply of bog-trottin’ savages holds out.”

At this juncture one of the men in the hold lifted his sooty countenance and, with the vehemence of a lunatic, delivered this:

“Whythilldonye’veaharseut’lldothwark?”

“Dry up,” said Mike, pulling the brick from his pocket. “Dry up or I’ll hurt yer feelin’s.”

The man shrank back out of sight, and Mike put the brick back in his pocket.

“What did he say?” queried John.

“He objicts to the speed o’ the harse on the dock. He can fill buckets, ye see, faster than the harse can h’ist ’em. That’s what ails him.”

“And he’s afraid o’ the brick?”