won't bear it, there ain't
any that will. Wait a bit! I ain't through yet."

"Go on,"--quietly enough spoken, but the mouth shook under its silky
fringe, and a fiery spot burned on either cheek.

"All right. Well, sir, I know all about Franklin. He's a bright one,
smart enough to stock a lot of us with brains and have some to spare; he
don't interfere with us, and does his work well, too, I reckon,--though
that's neither here nor there, nor none of our business if the boss is
satisfied; and he looks like a gentleman, and acts like one, there's no
denying that! and as for his skin,--well!" a smile breaking over his
good-looking face, "his skin's quite as white as mine now, anyway,"
smearing his red-flannel arm over his grimy phiz; "but then, sir, it
won't rub off. He's a nigger, and there's no getting round it.

"All right, sir! give you your chance directly. Don't speak yet,--ain't
through, if _you_ please. Well, sir, it's agen nature,--you may talk
agen it, and work agen it, and fight agen it till all's blue, and what
good'll it do? You can't get an Irishman, and, what's more, a free-born
American citizen, to put himself on a level with a nigger,--not by no
manner of means. No, sir; you can turn out the whole lot, and get
another after it, and another after that, and so on to the end of the
chapter, and you can't find men among 'em all that'll stay and have him
strutting through 'em, up to his stool and his books, grand as a
peacock."

"Would they work _with_ him?"

"At the same engines, and the like, do you mean?"

"Yes."

"Nary time, so 'tain't likely they'll work under him. Now, sir, you see
I know what I'm saying, and I'm saying it to _you_, Mr. Surrey, and not
to your father, because he won't take a word from me nor nobody
else,--and here's just the case. Now I ain't bullying, you understand,
and I say it because somebody else'd say it, if I didn't, uglier and
rougher. Abe Franklin'll have to go out of this shop in precious short
order, or every man here'll bolt next Saturday night. There! now I've
done, sir, and you can fire away."

But as he showed no signs of "firing away," and stood still, pondering,
Jim broke out again:--

"Beg pardon, sir. If I've said anything you don't like, sorry for it.
It's because Mr. Surrey is so good an employer, and, if you'll let me
say so, because I like you so well," glancing over him
admiringly,--"for, you see, a good engineer takes to a clean-built
machine wherever