turned toward the stairway again, flinging his answer over his shoulder.

"Learnin' the business, that's what. From the ground up, see?" He turned
at the first stair and leaned forward and down, one hand on the
door-jamb. "Well, believe me he don't use me as no ground-dirt. An' when
I'm takin' the screen off the big roll--see?--he comes up to me an'
says I'm handlin' it rough an' it's a delicate piece of mechanism.
'Who're you?' I says. 'Never mind who I am' he says, 'I'm working' on
this job,' he says, 'an' this is a paper mill you're workin' in,' he
says, 'not a boiler factory. Treat the machinery accordin', like a real
workman,' he says. The simp! I just stepped down off the platform of the
big press, and I says, 'Well, you look like a kinda delicate piece of
mechanism yourself,' I says, 'an' need careful handlin', so take that
for a starter,' I says. An' with that I handed him one in the nose."
Buzz laughed, but there was little mirth in it. "I bet he seen enough
wheels an' delicate machinery that minute to set up a whole new plant."

There was nothing of mirth in the woman's drawn face. "Oh, Ernie, f'r
God's sake! What they goin' to do to you!"

He was half way up the narrow stairway, she at the foot of it, peering
up at him. "They won't do anything. I guess old Hatton ain't so stuck on
havin' his swell golf club crowd know his little boy was beat up by one
of the workmen."

He was clumping about upstairs now. So she turned toward the kitchen,
dazedly. She glanced at the clock. Going on toward five. Still in
the absurd hat she got out a panful of potatoes and began to peel
them skilfuly, automatically. The seamed and hardened fingers
had come honestly by their deftness. They had twirled and peeled