The introduction of the Yankee hammers and the oil furnaces for heating was the beginning of hustle in the shed. Everything was designed for the man to start as early as possible, to keep on mechanically to and from the furnace and hammer with not the slightest pause, except for meals, and to run till the very last moment. His prices were fixed accordingly. Every operation was correctly timed. The manager and overseer stood together, watches in hand. It was so and so a minute; that would amount to so much in an hour, and so much total for the day. If Pinnell flagged a little--it is dreadful to have to keep hammering away for hours in an exhausted condition, with never a moment’s pause--if he flagged a little, or checked the oil somewhat in the forge, the overseer promptly set it going again and pricked him on to greater effort, answering his words--if he ever dared utter any--with a wheedling and plausible excuse, and telling him it was not at all hard; “Just a busy little job,” and so forth. If nature required that he should leave the forge and walk across the shed, that was the subject of a note--“One minute and three-quarters gone.” Did he think he could beat the records of all the other men at the stamps? The manager hoped he would try hard to do so, he wanted the machine to be quite first in output. The prices were weighed, chiselled, and pared with great exactness, even to the splitting of a farthing: “A halfpenny is too much for this job; I shall give you three-eighths.” Moreover, the overseers only timed him in the morning, after breakfast, which is the most active part of every day, and when all are fresh and fit for work, or never, so that the prices were fixed at a time when everything was going at its best. It is impossible to maintain the same speed in the afternoon, or even during the latter part of the morning towards dinner-time, that one is capable of after breakfast.
So Pinnell was little by little broken in to the new conditions. Whatever protests he made were of no avail. If the acute manager happened to make a slight misjudgment and give him a fair price for a job, one or other of the shed overseers--though always very flip with him to his face--rushed off privately and informed about it, and had it cut down to the dead level. Very often the overseers competed with each other to see which could make the lowest quotation in order to get into favour with the managers. Once, after playing an underhanded game in the fixing of prices, the foreman even induced Pinnell to leave his hammer and forge and go and protest to the manager himself, though he knew very well the matter was nothing but a farce. When the deluded one arrived at the office he was received with studied courtesy. A little arithmetic was entered into, and it was proved beyond all doubt that the job was well, and even generously, paid for. Accordingly, feeling rather foolish at his boldness in going to the manager and his failure to succeed in the matter, Pinnell returned to his work, while the overseer stood in hiding and watched him back to his hammer, laughing at his simplicity.
