until something else would take his attention, when he would quiet down and be as peaceful as ever.  Somehow, I always felt that in spite of all the difficulties involved, he enjoyed these rows—­must fight, in short, to be happy.  Sometimes he would go home without saying a word to Matt, a conclusion which at first I imagined portended the end of the latter, but soon I came to know better.  For the next morning Matt would reappear as unconcernedly as though nothing had happened, and Rourke would appear not to notice or remember.

Once, anent all this, I said to him, “Rourke, how many times have you threatened to discharge Matt in the last three years?”

“Shewer,” he replied, with his ingratiating grin, “a man don’t mane aall he says aall the time.”

The most humorous of all his collection of workingmen, however, was the aforementioned Jimmie, a dark, mild-eyed, soft-spoken Calabrian, who had the shrewdness of a Machiavelli and the pertness of a crow.  He lived in the same neighborhood as Rourke, far out in one of those small towns on the Harlem, sheltering so many Italians, for, like a hen with a brood of chicks, Rourke kept all his Italians gathered close about him.  Jimmie, curiously, was the one who was always selected to run his family errands for him, a kind of valet to Rourke, as it were—­selected for some merit I could never discover, certainly not one of speed.  He was nevertheless constantly running here and there like an errand boy, his worn, dusty, baggy clothes making him look like a dilapidated bandit fresh from a sewer.  On the job, however, no matter what it might be, Jimmie could never be induced to do real, hard work.  He was always above it, or busy with something else.  But as he was an expert cement-mixer and knew just how to load and unload the tool-car, two sinecures of sorts, nothing was ever said to him.  If any one dared to reprove him, myself for instance (a mere interloper to Jimmie), he would reply:  “Yeh!  Yeh!  I know-a my biz.  I been now with Misha Rook fifteen year.  I know-a my biz.”  If you made any complaint to Rourke, he would merely grin and say, “Ha!  Jimmie’s the sharp one,” or perhaps, “I’ll get ye yet, ye fox,” but more than that nothing was ever done.

One day, however, Jimmie failed to comply with an extraordinary order of Rourke’s, which, while it resulted in no real damage, produced a most laughable and yet characteristic scene.  A strict rule of the company was that no opening of any kind into which a person might possibly step or fall should be left uncovered at any station during the approach, stay, or departure of any train scheduled to stop at that station.  Rourke was well aware of this rule.  He had a copy of it on file in his collection of circulars.  In addition, he had especially delegated Jimmie to attend to this matter, a task which just suited the Italian as it gave him ample time to idle about and pretend to be watching.  This it was which made the crime all the greater.