e a union, we get
canned, and if we would seek dissipation, we're invited to go down to
the Company hall and listen to Tommy Van Dorn norate upon what he calls
the 'de-hig-nity of luh-ay-bor.' Damn sight of dignity labor has, lopin'
three laps ahead of the garnishee from one year's end to the other."

He laughed a good-natured, creaking laugh, and said as he waved his hand
to part with Mr. Brotherton--"Well, annyhow, the good woman will thank
you for the extra readin'; not that she has time to read it, God knows,
but it gives the place a tone when Laura Nesbit drops in for a bit of a
word of help about the makin' of the little white things she's doin' for
the Polish family on 'D' Street these days." In another minute
Brotherton heard the car moaning at the curve, and saw Hogan get in. It
was nearly midnight when Hogan got to sleep; for the papers that
Brotherton sent brought back "the grandeur that was Greece," and he had
to hear how Mr. Van Dorn had made Mr. Brotherton mayor and how they had
both made Dr. Nesbit Senator, and how ungrateful the Doctor was to turn
against the hand that fed him, and many other incidents and tales that
pointed to the renown of the unimpeachable Judge, who for seven years
had reigned in the humble house of Hogan as a first-rate god.

That night Hogan tossed as the fumes in his lungs burned the tissues and
at five he got up, made the fire, helped to dress the oldest child while
his wife prepared the breakfast. He missed the six-ten car, and being
late at work stopped in to take a drink at the Hot Dog, near the dump on
the company ground, thinking it would put some ginger into him for the
day's work. For two hours or so the whiskey livened him up, but as the
forenoon grew old, he began to yawn and was tired.

"Hogan," called the dump-boss, "go down to the powder house and bring up
a box of persuaders."

The slag was hard and needed blasting. Hogan looked up, said "What?" and
before the dump boss could speak again Hogan had started down and around
the dump to the powder house, near the saloon. He went into the powder
house, and then came out, carrying a heavy box. At the sidewalk edge,
Hogan, who was yawning, stumbled--they saw him stumble, two men standing
in the door of the Hot Dog saloon a block away, and they told the people
at the inquest that that was the last they saw. A great explosion
followed. The men about the dump huddled for a long minute under freight
cars, then crawled out, a