"My name ban Swanson; it ban all right, hey?"
"Swanson! Swanson! Oh, ye poor benighted, ignorant foreigner!" and
Mike straightened up, slapping his chest proudly. "Jist ye look at me,
now! Oi'm an O'Brien, do ye moind that? An O'Brien! Mother o' God!
we was O'Briens whin the Ark first landed; we was O'Briens whin yer
ancestors--if iver ye had anny--was wigglin' pollywogs pokin' in the
mud. We was kings in ould Oireland, begorry, whin ye was a mollusk, or
maybe a poi-faced baboon swingin' by the tail. The gall of the loikes
of ye to call yerselves min, and dhraw pay wid that sort of thing
ferninst ye for a name! Oi 'll bet ye niver had no grandfather; ye 're
nothin' but a it, a son of a say-cook, be the powers! An' ye come over
here to work for a thafe--a dhirty, low-down thafe. Do ye moind that,
yer lanthern-jawed spalpeen? What was it yer did over beyant?"
"Ay ban shovel-man fer Meester Burke--hard vork."
"Ye don't look that intilligent from here. Work!" with a snort, and
waving his pipe in the air. "Work, is it? Sure, an' it's all the
loikes of ye are iver good for. It 's not brains ye have at all, or ye
'd take it a bit aisier. Oi had a haythen Swade foreman oncet over at
the 'Last Chance.' God forgive me for workin' undher the loikes of
him. Sure he near worked me to death, he did that, the ignorant
furriner. Work! why, Oi 'm dommed if a green Swade did n't fall the
full length of the shaft one day, an' whin we wint over to pick him up,
what was it ye think the poor haythen said? He opened his oies an'
asked, 'Is the boss mad?' afeared he 'd lose his job! An' so ye was
workin' for a thafe, was ye? An' what for?"
"Two tollar saxty cint."
Mike leaped to his feet as though a spring had suddenly uncoiled
beneath him, waving his arms in wild excitement, and dancing about on
his short legs.
"Two dollars an' sixty cints! Did ye hear that, now? For the love of
Hivin! an' the union wages three sixty! Ye 're a dommed scab, an' it's
meself that 'll wallup ye just for luck. It's crazy Oi am to do the
job. What wud the loikes of ye work for Misther Hicks for?"
Swanson's impassive face remained imperturbable; he stroked the
moustaches dangling over the corners of his dejected mouth.
"Two tollar saxty cint."
Mike glared at him, and then at the girl, his own lips puckering.
"Bedad, Oi belave the poor cr'ater do n't know anny betther. Shure, 't
is not for an O'Brien to be wastin' his toime thryin' to tache the
loikes of him the great sacrets of thrade. It wud be castin' pearls
afore swine, as Father Kinny says. Did iver ye hear tell of the
Boible, now?"