United States or Nicaragua ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In another three weeks the work was really given him to do, and then began one of the finest exhibitions of Irish domination and self-sufficiency that I have ever witnessed. We moved to Mott Haven Yard, a great network of tracks and buildings, in the center of which this new building was to be erected. Rourke was given a large force of men, whom he fairly gloried in bossing.
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.
Handling these, Rourke was in his element. He loved to see so much brisk work going on. He would trot to and fro about the place, beaming in the most angelic fashion, and shouting orders that could be heard all over the neighborhood. It was delicious to watch him.
From his manner and conversation, I judged that Rourke was eager to get this job, for he had been a contractor of some ability in his day before he ever went to work for the company, and felt, I am sure, that fate had done him an injustice in not allowing him to remain one.
But you couldn't know that Stasia was a lady not to be trifled with. We know her name was Rourke, but he didn't. So then: "Hoo-hoo!" he had called. "Hello, sweetheart! Wait for me and I'll be down." Stasia Rourke had lifted her face to where he perched so high above the streets. Her cheeks were five shades pinker than was their wont, which would make them border on the red.
"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.
Sometimes o.k.s did not come in for a month or more, the goods lying around somewhere until Rourke could use them. He wanted to know what explanation Rourke had to offer, and when I suggested that the latter thought, apparently, that he could leave all consignments of goods in one station or another until such time as he needed them before he o.k.ed for them, he fairly foamed.
I've told you that before, you know." Rourke looked up, so astonished and ashamed that he should have been put in such a position before his superior that he hardly knew what to say. I doubt if any one ever had a greater capacity for respecting his superiors, anyhow.
In a vague way, Rourke sensed this and resented it. He knew that his work was as good as could be done, and yet here were these constant reports and o.k.s to irritate and delay him. Apparently they aided actual construction no whit but, of course, they did.
But the thing in Rourke that would have pleased any one was his ready grasp for the actualities of life his full-fledged knowledge that work is the thing, not argument, or reports, or plans, but the direct accomplishment of something tangible, the thing itself.
Word Of The Day