doomed for some sin
committed to everlasting toil and torment. Mere machines of flesh and
sinew, they executed with the rapidity and expertness of long practise
certain mechanical movements, their toughened muscles and iron frame
standing the strain and heat with amazing endurance, sweat literally
pouring off their faces and bodies in streams. At moments the heat
became intolerable--the stoker himself caught fire. His skin began to
blister, his hair started to smoke. He gave a shout, and a comrade
quickly emptied a bucket of water over him, throwing off a cloud of
steam. Thus temporarily relieved, he set to his devilish task again. It
was the hardest kind of labor known to man, but, like the ancient
stoics, the stokers gave no sign of their suffering. They toiled
uncomplainingly in grim silence, as if resigned to accept this degraded,
painful occupation as their proper lot in life. They worked on and on
until gradually even their great strength gave out. Overcome by the
appalling heat, suffocating from lack of fresh air, one by one they were
forced to fall back and give place to fresher men.

The daintily gowned, carefully groomed passengers from the first cabin
watched them, fascinated. It was difficult for Grace, who had seen
nothing but plenty around her since she came into the world, to
understand that there were human beings so miserably poor, so low down
in the social scale that they had to earn their bread in this way. The
literalness of the saying "making a living by the sweat of one's brow"
dawned upon her for the first time. She was shocked, and then she felt
sorry--sorry that any human being should be so degraded. A sense of
guilt came over her, as if she realized that the luxuries her class
loved and exacted were responsible for this degradation, this
suffering.

She wondered where the refractory fireman was, and presently she
perceived him, emerging from the gloom, approaching the roaring furnace,
steel rod in hand, to rake the fiery coal, covering his face with his
unemployed hand to ward off the blistering heat. He was easily
recognizable in spite of his forbidding, ghoulish aspect, towering as he
did several inches above his comrades. Built like a Hercules, he had a
torso that would have given joy to the great Praxiteles himself. His
lines were academic, the muscles on his massive yet admirably molded
shoulders and arms stood out like whip-cords, and as he stood before the
open fire, working the steel