| OCR Text |
Show "It's...kinda big." What if he couldn't find his way around the inside? Maybe he'd get lost and they'd fire him, and he'd have to go back to school in September. "That ain't just the eight-inch mill in there," Jame said. "The ten-inch mill's in there, too, and the roll storage places and stuff like that. You never been inside it?" "No. I just went to the employment office." "Come on, then. I'll take you to the foreman so you can find out what you're supposed to do. But first, listen, I got to warn you about the foreman, Baldy Weitz," Jame said. "He's a rotten bugger. Watch him close, Karl, and if he tells you to jump, jump fast. If you don't, he'll throw you out on your can faster than you can spit." Karl still hadn't calmed down from the bridge scare; Jame's warning made his insides twist even more. The mill building seemed grim and threatening. No windows broke the expanse of walls. The interior of the building was illuminated by electric lights high overhead. Karl followed Jame along the metal floor toward a thin, bald-headed man who was squinting at the pages of an order form. "Mr. Weitz," Jame said, "this is Karl Kerner. He was hired on to start today. What job do you want him to do?" Karl smiled brightly, trying to look smart and alert, but the foreman's cold blue eyes drifted disinterestedly over him. "Start him as a smoke-hole boy," Weitz told Jame. "You show him...." The words were interrupted by the blast of the seven-o'clock whistle, "...the ropes," Weitz continued when the piercing whistle died. "And get a move on it, Culley. I want to begin the first heat fast. |
