But the thing in Rourke that would have pleased any one was his ready grasp for the actualities of life—­his full-fledged knowledge that work is the thing, not argument, or reports, or plans, but the direct accomplishment of something tangible, the thing itself.  Thus, while I was working with him, at least nothing that might concern the clerical end of the labor could disturb him, but, if the sky fell, and eight thousand chief clerks threatened to march upon him in a body demanding reports and o.k.s, he would imperturbably make you wait until the work was done.  Once, when I interrupted him to question him concerning some of these same wretched, pestering aftermaths of labor, concerning which he alone could answer, he shut me off with:  “The reports!  The reports!  What good arre the reports!  Ye make me sick.  What have the reports to do with the work?  If it wasn’t fer the work, where would the reports be?” And I heartily echoed “Where?”

Another thing was his charming attitude toward his men, kindly and sweet for all his storming, that innate sense of something intimate and fatherly.  He had a way of saying kindly things in a joking manner which touched them.  When he arrived in the morning, for instance, it was always in the cheeriest way that he began.  “Come, now, b’ys, ye have a good day’s work before ye today.  Get the shovels, Jimmie.  Bring the line, Matt!” and then he would go below himself, if below it was, and there would be joy and peace until some obstacle to progress interfered.  I might say in passing that Matt and Jimmie, his faithful henchmen, were each between forty and fifty, if they were a day—­poor, gnarled, dusty, storm-tossed Italians who had come from heaven knows where, had endured God knows what, and were now rounding out a work-a-day existence under the sheltering wing of this same Rourke, a great and protecting power to them.

This same Matt was a funny little Italian, soft of voice and gentle of manner, whom Rourke liked very much, but with whom he loved to quarrel.  He would go down in any hole where the latter was working, and almost invariably shortly after you would hear the most amazing uproar issuing therefrom, shouts of:  “Put it here, I say!  Put it here!  Down with it!  Here!  Here!  Jasus Christ, have ye no sinse at aall?”—­coupled, of course, with occasional guttural growls from Matt, who was by no means in awe of his master and who feared no personal blows.  The latter had been with Rourke for so long that he was not in the least overawed by his yelling and could afford to take such liberties.  Occasionally, not always, Rourke would come climbing out of the hole, his face and neck fairly scarlet with heat, raging and shouting, “I’ll get shut av ye!  I’ll have no more thruck with ye, ye blitherin’, crazy loon!  What good arre ye?  What work can ye do?  Naathin’!  Naathin’!  I’ll be shut av ye now, an’ thin maybe I’ll have a little p’ace.”  Then he would dance around and threaten and growl