exclaim, "Ye're jist the b'y
fer the place, Teddy. Ye'd made a good bookkeeper. If ever I get to be
Prisident, I'll make ye me Sicretary av State."

But the thing which really interested and enthralled Rourke was the
coming of the masons--those hardy buccaneers of the laboring world who
come and go as they please, asking no favors and brooking no
interference. Plainly he envied them their reckless independence at the
same time that he desired to control their labor in his favor--a task
worthy of the shrewdest diplomat. Never in my life have I seen such a
gay, ruthless, inconsiderate point of view as these same union masons
represented, a most astounding lot. They were--are, I suppose I should
say--our modern buccaneers and Captain Kidds of the laboring world,
demanding, if you please, their six a day, starting and stopping almost
when they please, doing just as little as they dare and yet face their
own decaying conscience, dropping any task at the most critical and
dangerous point, and in other ways rejoicing in and disporting
themselves in such a way as to annoy the representatives of any
corporation great or small that suffered the sad compulsion of employing
them. Seriously, I am not against union laborers. I like them. They
spell rude, blazing life. But when you have to deal with them!

Plainly, Rourke anticipated endless rows. Their coming promised him the
opportunity he inmostly desired, I suppose, of once more fussing and
fuming with real, strong, determined and pugnacious men like himself,
who would not take his onslaughts tamely but would fight him back, as he
wished strong men to do. He was never weary of talking of them.

"Wait till we have thirty er forty av thim on the line," he once
observed to me in connection with them, "every man layin' his six
hundred bricks a day, er takin' aaf his apron! Thim's the times ye'll
see what excitement manes, me b'y. Thim's the times."

"What'll I see, Rourke?" I asked interestedly.

"Throuble enough. Shewer, they're no crapin' Eyetalians, that'll let ye
taalk to thim as ye pl'ase. Indade not. Ye'll have to fight with them
fellies."

"Well, that's a queer state of affairs," I remarked, and then added, "Do
you think you can handle them, Rourke?"

"Handle thim!" he exclaimed, his glorious wrath kindling in anticipation
of a possible conflict. "Handle thim, an' the likes av a thousand av
thim! I know them aall, every waan av thim, an' their thricks. It's naht
foolin