g of his future.

CHAPTER XXXIV. SHIRTS FOR TIN ROLLERS

In summer the temperature in the tin mills is very high. It is as hot
as the Fourth of July in Abyssinia. One day a philosophical fellow was
talking religion to me. He said, "I don't believe in hell as a place
where we boil forever in a lake of brimstone. It can't be as hot as
that. My constitution never could stand it." His constitution stood
up under the heat in the tin mill. So it is plain that the tin-mill
temperature was somewhat less than the temperature of the Pit.

Outsiders began coming into the mills and giving us workers a chill by
telling us that the heat was killing us. The men used to cool
themselves down with a glass of beer at the close of the day. The social
investigators told us that alcohol taken into the system at such a time
would cause sunstroke. If beer was fatal, most of us figured that we
had been dead for years and didn't know it. The effect of constant
complaints was to demoralize us and make our work harder. I thought at
first that these investigators were our friends and I gave them all the
help I could. But instead of helping us, they only hurt us, and then
I soured on their misapplied zeal. They were a species new to me that
seemed to have sprung up in the hard times, just as cooties spring up
in time of war. And like cooties, they attached themselves to us
closer than a brother and yet they were no brothers of ours. The social
investigators nibbled away at the men and kept them restless in their
hours of ease. They sat at our boarding table and complained of the
food. Corned beef and cabbage was one of our regular dishes. Mr.
Investigator turned up his nose and said: "I never touch corned beef. If
you knew as much about it as I do, you would insist on steaks or roast
beef instead. You know what corned beef is, don't you?"

The men got mad and one fellow said: "Yes; it is dead cow. All meat is
dead animals. Now give us a rest."

"Yes, it's all dead, but some of it is a whole lot deader than you
imagine. I've been investigating the packing business, and I'll tell
you all about corned beef and wienies." He then went on with a lot of
sickening details and when he got through he found that the younger men
had not eaten any dinner. The older men paid no attention to him and
worked right ahead to the pie and toothpick stage, but the younger
fellows had been euchred out of dinner and went back to work with wabbly
steps and empty