"Bob, if it hadn't been for Ignatz, we should have been in a worse mess than we are. He's one of the white men in this smoky part of the country."
"I'll shake with you when my hands get well," laughed Jarvis. "I can't even shake my head now. I couldn't shake if I had an attack of chills."
"I suppose you know that we have lost our positions, don't you, Ignatz?" asked Steve.
"I hear men say you no work in open-hearth place any more."
"I'll tell you all about it." Rush told the story fully, and without reserve, to their faithful friend, Brodsky listening attentively with emotionless face.
"Huh!" he grunted after the recital had come to an end. "Watski say you blow up pit?"
"Huh! Watski much liar! Foley, him liar, too. All liars. You see superintendent?"
"We saw Superintendent McNaughton. It was he who sent for us and discharged us."
"No, Ignatz; we can't go to him with our troubles. That would be too much like whining, and we are not the kind of boys who go about crying because we have been whipped."
"To tell the truth, nothing would give me greater pleasure. But we are not going to do anything of the sort--that is, if he keeps away and lets us alone."
"I'd like to catch him on the hot metal bridge some fine night when there wasn't anybody near," growled Bob, shaking his padded fist.
"What I sent for you for, Ignatz, was to ask you about some of the other mills. I have not been here long enough to know about them. Will you tell me what the other mills are, and whom to see? I am going to try to get a job."
Brodsky named the independent mills. There were ten of them in all. He knew the names of some of the foremen, and said he would get the names that he did not know.
"You want me more?" demanded the Pole, rising abruptly.
"No, but we should like to have you spend the evening with us, if you have no other place to go," said Steve.
"Must go home split the wood for my mother. She take a club to me if I don't. I see you bimeby, mebby to-night, mebby the day after to-morrow."
The boy turned and left the room at a trot. Bob laughed heartily after he had gone.
"He's true-blue, Bob. Under all his stolidness he is every inch a man, as I have said many times before. He is more cut up over our hard luck than we are. I hope he doesn't try to induce Kalinski to take us back. That would please the pit boss, because he would think we had asked Ignatz to intercede for us. I would rather never have a job again than to ask either of those three men to take us back."