Andrews shouldered it, unweariedly, cheerily,
joyfully, for pure love of the task.

One sees him, big and strong, a paint-smeared bowler hat on his crown,
grease on his boots and the pockets of his blue jacket stuffed with
plans, making his daily round of the Yards, now consulting his Chief,
now conferring with a foreman, now interviewing an owner, now poring
over intricate calculations in the Drawing office, now in company with
his warm friend, old schoolfellow, and co-director, Mr. George Cumming
of the Engineering department, superintending the hoisting of a boiler
by the two hundred ton crane into some newly launched ship by a wharf.
Or he runs amok through a gang--to their admiration, be it said--found
heating their tea-cans before horn-blow; or comes unawares upon a party
enjoying a stolen smoke below a tunnel-shaft, and, having spoken his
mind forcibly, accepts with a smile the dismayed sentinel's excuse that
"'twasn't fair to catch him by coming like that into the tunnel instead
of by the way he was expected." Or he kicks a red hot rivet, which has
fallen fifty feet from an upper deck, missing his head by inches, and
strides on laughing at his escape. Or he calls some laggard to stern
account, promising him the gate double quick without any talk next time.
Or he lends a ready hand to one in difficulties; or just in time saves
another from falling down a hold; or saying that married men's lives are
precious, orders back a third from some dangerous place and himself
takes the risk. Or he runs into the Drawing office with a hospital note
and a gift of flowers and fruit for the sick wife of a draughtsman. Or
at horn-blow he stands by a ship's gangway, down which four thousand
hungry men, with a ninety feet drop below them, are rushing for home
and supper, and with voice and eye controls them ... a guard rope breaks
... another instant and there may be grim panic on the gangway ... but
his great voice rings out, "Stand back, men," and he holds them as in a
leash until the rope is made good again.

All in the day's work, those and a thousand other incidents which men
treasure to-day in the Island, and, if you are tactful, will reveal to
you in their slow laconic Northern way. He has been in the Yard perhaps
since four or five o'clock--since six for a certainty. At seven or so he
will trudge home, or ride in a tramcar with the other workers, to sit
over his plans or his books well into the night.

One recalls a day,