It was not so very long after I arrived that Rourke began to tell me of a building which the company was going to erect in Mott Haven Yard, one of its great switching centers.  It was to be an important affair, according to him, sixty by two hundred feet in breadth and length, of brick and stone, and was to be built under a time limit of three months, an arrangement by which the company hoped to find out how satisfactorily it could do work for itself rather than by outside contract, which it was always hoping to avoid.  From his manner and conversation, I judged that Rourke was eager to get this job, for he had been a contractor of some ability in his day before he ever went to work for the company, and felt, I am sure, that fate had done him an injustice in not allowing him to remain one.  In addition, he felt a little above the odds and ends of masonry that he was now called on to do, where formerly he had done so much more important work.  He was eager to be a real foreman once more, a big one, and to show the company that he could erect this building and thus make a little place for himself in the latter’s good graces, although to what end I could not quite make out.  He would never have made a suitable general foreman.  At the same time, he was a little afraid of the clerical details, those terrible nightmares of reports, o.k.s and the like.

“How arre ye feelin’, Teddy, b’y?” he often inquired of me during this period, with a greater show of interest in my troublesome health than ever before.  I talked of leaving, I suppose, from time to time because sheer financial necessity was about to compel it.

“Fine, Rourke,” I would say, “never better.  I’m feeling better every day.”

“That’s good.  Ye’re the right man in the right place now.  If ye was to sthay a year er two at this work it would be the makin’ av ye.  Ye’re too thin.  Ye need more chist,” and he would tap my bony chest in a kindly manner.  “I niver have a sick day, meself.”

“That’s right, Rourke,” I replied pleasantly, feeling keenly the need of staying by so wonderful a lamp of health.  “I intend to stick at it as long as I can.”

“Ye ought to; it’ll do ye good.  If we get the new buildin’ to build, it’ll be better yet for ye.  Ye’ll have plenty to do there to relave yer mind.”

“Relieve, indeed!” I thought, but I did not say so.  On the contrary I felt so much sympathy for this lusty Irishman and his reasonable ambitions that I desired to help him, and urged him to get it.  I suggested indirectly that I would see him through, which touched him greatly.  He was a grateful creature in his way, but so excitable and so helplessly self-reliant that there was no way of aiding him without doing it in a secret or rather self-effacing manner.  He would have much preferred to struggle along alone and fail, though I doubt whether real failure could have come to Rourke so essentially capable was he.