“Doin’ much readin’?” Joe asked.

Martin shook his head.

“Never mind.  We got to run the mangle to-night, but Thursday we’ll knock off at six.  That’ll give you a chance.”

Martin washed woollens that day, by hand, in a large barrel, with strong soft-soap, by means of a hub from a wagon wheel, mounted on a plunger-pole that was attached to a spring-pole overhead.

“My invention,” Joe said proudly.  “Beats a washboard an’ your knuckles, and, besides, it saves at least fifteen minutes in the week, an’ fifteen minutes ain’t to be sneezed at in this shebang.”

Running the collars and cuffs through the mangle was also Joe’s idea.  That night, while they toiled on under the electric lights, he explained it.

“Something no laundry ever does, except this one.  An’ I got to do it if I’m goin’ to get done Saturday afternoon at three o’clock.  But I know how, an’ that’s the difference.  Got to have right heat, right pressure, and run ’em through three times.  Look at that!” He held a cuff aloft.  “Couldn’t do it better by hand or on a tiler.”

Thursday, Joe was in a rage.  A bundle of extra “fancy starch” had come in.

“I’m goin’ to quit,” he announced.  “I won’t stand for it.  I’m goin’ to quit it cold.  What’s the good of me workin’ like a slave all week, a-savin’ minutes, an’ them a-comin’ an’ ringin’ in fancy-starch extras on me?  This is a free country, an’ I’m to tell that fat Dutchman what I think of him.  An’ I won’t tell ’m in French.  Plain United States is good enough for me.  Him a-ringin’ in fancy starch extras!”

“We got to work to-night,” he said the next moment, reversing his judgment and surrendering to fate.

And Martin did no reading that night.  He had seen no daily paper all week, and, strangely to him, felt no desire to see one.  He was not interested in the news.  He was too tired and jaded to be interested in anything, though he planned to leave Saturday afternoon, if they finished at three, and ride on his wheel to Oakland.  It was seventy miles, and the same distance back on Sunday afternoon would leave him anything but rested for the second week’s work.  It would have been easier to go on the train, but the round trip was two dollars and a half, and he was intent on saving money.

CHAPTER XVII

Martin learned to do many things.  In the course of the first week, in one afternoon, he and Joe accounted for the two hundred white shirts.  Joe ran the tiler, a machine wherein a hot iron was hooked on a steel string which furnished the pressure.  By this means he ironed the yoke, wristbands, and neckband, setting the latter at right angles to the shirt, and put the glossy finish on the bosom.  As fast as he finished them, he flung the shirts on a rack between him and Martin, who caught them up and “backed” them.  This task consisted of ironing all the unstarched portions of the shirts.