"He's in his shanty--over there," said an American furnace-helper, who
was getting into his mill clothes.
I went after Pete's shanty. It was a sheet-iron box, 12 by 12, midway
down the floor, near a steel beam. Pete was coming out, buttoning the
lower buttons of a blue shirt. He looked through my head and passed me,
much as he had passed the steel beam. With two or three steps I moved
out and blocked his way. He looked at me, loosened his face, and said
very cheerfully: "Hello."
"I've come to work," I said.
"Here," he said, "you'll work th' pit t' night. Few days, y' know, get
used ter things."
He led the way to some iron stairs, and we went down together into that
darkened region under the furnaces, about whose function I had
speculated.
To the left I could make out tracks. Railroads seem to run through a
steel mill from cellar to attic. And at intervals, from above the
tracks, torrents of sparks swept into the dark, with now and then a
small stream of yellow fire.
We stumbled over bricks, mud, clay, a shovel, and the railroad track. In
front of a narrow curtain of molten slag, falling on the floor, we
waited for some moments. We were under the middle furnaces, I
calculated. Gradually the curtain ceased, and Pete leaped under the hole
from which it had come.
"Watch yourself," he said.