Harlem, sheltering so many Italians, for, like a hen with a brood
of chicks, Rourke kept all his Italians gathered close about him.
Jimmie, curiously, was the one who was always selected to run his family
errands for him, a kind of valet to Rourke, as it were--selected for
some merit I could never discover, certainly not one of speed. He was
nevertheless constantly running here and there like an errand boy, his
worn, dusty, baggy clothes making him look like a dilapidated bandit
fresh from a sewer. On the job, however, no matter what it might be,
Jimmie could never be induced to do real, hard work. He was always above
it, or busy with something else. But as he was an expert cement-mixer
and knew just how to load and unload the tool-car, two sinecures of
sorts, nothing was ever said to him. If any one dared to reprove him,
myself for instance (a mere interloper to Jimmie), he would reply: "Yeh!
Yeh! I know-a my biz. I been now with Misha Rook fifteen year. I know-a
my biz." If you made any complaint to Rourke, he would merely grin and
say, "Ha! Jimmie's the sharp one," or perhaps, "I'll get ye yet, ye
fox," but more than that nothing was ever done.

One day, however, Jimmie failed to comply with an extraordinary order of
Rourke's, which, while it resulted in no real damage, produced a most
laughable and yet characteristic scene. A strict rule of the company was
that no opening of any kind into which a person might possibly step or
fall should be left uncovered at any station during the approach, stay,
or departure of any train scheduled to stop at that station. Rourke was
well aware of this rule. He had a copy of it on file in his collection
of circulars. In addition, he had especially delegated Jimmie to attend
to this matter, a task which just suited the Italian as it gave him
ample time to idle about and pretend to be watching. This it was which
made the crime all the greater.

On this particular occasion Jimmie had failed to attend to this matter.
We had been working on the platform at Williamsbridge, digging a pit for
a coal-bin, when a train bearing the general foreman came along. The
latter got off at the station especially to examine the work that had
been done so far. When the train arrived there was the hole wide open
with Rourke below shouting and gesticulating about something, and
totally unconscious, of course, that his order had been neglected. The
general foreman, who was, by the way, I believe, an admirer