you please, their six a day, starting and stopping almost when they please, doing just as little as they dare and yet face their own decaying conscience, dropping any task at the most critical and dangerous point, and in other ways rejoicing in and disporting themselves in such a way as to annoy the representatives of any corporation great or small that suffered the sad compulsion of employing them.  Seriously, I am not against union laborers.  I like them.  They spell rude, blazing life.  But when you have to deal with them!

Plainly, Rourke anticipated endless rows.  Their coming promised him the opportunity he inmostly desired, I suppose, of once more fussing and fuming with real, strong, determined and pugnacious men like himself, who would not take his onslaughts tamely but would fight him back, as he wished strong men to do.  He was never weary of talking of them.

“Wait till we have thirty er forty av thim on the line,” he once observed to me in connection with them, “every man layin’ his six hundred bricks a day, er takin’ aaf his apron!  Thim’s the times ye’ll see what excitement manes, me b’y.  Thim’s the times.”

“What’ll I see, Rourke?” I asked interestedly.

“Throuble enough.  Shewer, they’re no crapin’ Eyetalians, that’ll let ye taalk to thim as ye pl’ase.  Indade not.  Ye’ll have to fight with them fellies.”

“Well, that’s a queer state of affairs,” I remarked, and then added, “Do you think you can handle them, Rourke?”

“Handle thim!” he exclaimed, his glorious wrath kindling in anticipation of a possible conflict.  “Handle thim, an’ the likes av a thousand av thim!  I know them aall, every waan av thim, an’ their thricks.  It’s naht foolin’ me they’ll be.  But, me b’y,” he added instructively, “it’s a fine job ye’ll have runnin’ down to the ahffice gettin’ their time.”  (This is the railroad man’s expression for money due, or wages.) “Ye’ll have plenty av that to do, I’m tellin’ ye.”

“You don’t mean to say that you’re going to discharge them, Rourke, do you?” I asked.

“Shewer!” he exclaimed authoritatively.  “Why shouldn’t I?  They’re jist the same as other min.  Why shouldn’t I?” Then he added, after a pause, “But it’s thim that’ll be comin’ to me askin’ fer their time instid av me givin’ it to thim, niver fear.  They’re not the kind that’ll let ye taalk back to thim.  If their work don’t suit ye, it’s ‘give me me time.’  Wait till they’ll be comin’ round half drunk in the mornin’, an’ not feelin’ just right.  Thim’s the times ye’ll find out what masons arre made av, me b’y.”

I confess this probability did not seem as brilliant to me as it did to him, but it had its humor.  I expressed wonder that he would hire them if they were such a bad lot.