nd point a joint as well
as my instructor. I could build a true square pier of any size from
one brick to twenty. I could make a square or pigeonhole corner or lay
out a brick footing. And I was proud of my accomplishment.

But more interesting to me than anything else was the opportunity I
now had as a foreman to test the value of the knowledge of my former
fellow workmen which I had been slowly acquiring. I was anxious to see
if my ideas were pure theory or whether they were practical. They had
proven practical at any rate in securing my own advance. This had come
about through no such pull as Rafferty's. It was the result of nothing
but my intelligent and conscientious work in the ditch and among the
men. And this in turn was made possible by the application of the
knowledge I picked up and used as I had the chance. It was only
because I had shown my employers that I was more valuable as a foreman
than a common laborer that I was not still digging. I had been able to
do this because having learned from twenty different men how to handle
a crowbar for instance, I had from time to time been able to direct
the men with whom I was working as at the start I myself had been
directed by Anton'. Anton' was still digging because that was all he
knew. I had learned other things. I had learned how to handle Anton'.

I had no idea that my efforts were being watched. I don't know now how
I was picked out. Except of course that it must have been because of
the work I did.

At any rate I found myself at the head of twenty men--all Italians,
all strangers and among them three or four just off the steamer. My
first job was on a foundation for an apartment house. Of course my
part in it was the very humble one of seeing that the men kept at work
digging. The work had all been staked out and the architect's agent
was there to give all incidental instructions. He was a young graduate
of a technical school and I took the opportunity this offered--for he
was a good-natured boy--to use what little I had learned in my night
school and study his blue prints. At odd times he explained them to me
and aside from what I learned myself from them it helped me to direct
the men more intelligently.

But it was on the men themselves that I centred my efforts. As soon as
possible I learned them by name. At the noon hour I took my lunch with
them and talked with them in their own language. I made a note of
where they lived and found as I expected t