The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington [best english novels for beginners .txt] 📗

come tomorrow. I’ll talk this out with you when the women-folks are workin’ the phonograph, after dinner. Can you keep sober till then? You better be sure, because I’m going to send Abercrombie down to your office every little while, and he’ll let me know.”

Roscoe paused at the door. “You told Abercrombie about it?” he asked.

“Told him!” And Sheridan laughed hideously. “Do you suppose there’s an elevator-boy in the whole dam’ building that ain’t on to you?”

Roscoe settled his hat down over his eyes and went out.

XXI

“Who looks a mustang in the eye?
Changety, chang, chang! Bash! Crash! Bang!”

So sang Bibbs, his musical gaieties inaudible to his fellow-workmen because of the noise of the machinery. He had discovered long ago that the uproar was rhythmical, and it had been intolerable; but now, on the afternoon of the fourth day of his return, he was accompanying the swing and clash of the metals with jubilant vaquero fragments, mingling improvisations of his own among them, and mocking the zinc-eater’s crash with vocal imitations:

“Fearless and bold,
Chang! Bash! Behold!
With a leap from the ground
To the saddle in a bound,
And away⁠—and away!
Hi-yay!
Who looks a chang, chang, bash, crash, bang!
Who cares a dash how you bash and you crash?
Night’s on the way
Each time I say,
Hi-yay!
Crash, chang! Bash, chang! Chang, bang, bang!”

The long room was ceaselessly thundering with metallic sound; the air was thick with the smell of oil; the floor trembled perpetually; everything was implacably in motion⁠—nowhere was there a rest for the dizzied eye. The first time he had entered the place Bibbs had become dizzy instantly, and six months of it had only added increasing nausea to faintness. But he felt neither now. “All day long I’ll send my thoughts to you. You must keep remembering that your friend stands beside you.” He saw her there beside him, and the greasy, roaring place became suffused with radiance. The poet was happy in his machine-shop; he was still a poet there. And he fed his old zinc-eater, and sang:

“Away⁠—and away!
Hi-yay!
Crash, bash, crash, bash, chang!
Wild are his eyes,
Fiercely he dies!
Hi-yah!
Crash, bash, bang! Bash, chang!
Ready to fling
Our gloves in the ring⁠—”

He was unaware of a sensation that passed along the lines of workmen. Their great master had come among them, and they grinned to see him standing with Dr. Gurney behind the unconscious Bibbs. Sheridan nodded to those nearest him⁠—he had personal acquaintance with nearly all of them⁠—but he kept his attention upon his son. Bibbs worked steadily, never turning from his machine. Now and then he varied his musical programme with remarks addressed to the zinc-eater.

“Go on, you old crash-basher! Chew it up! It’s good for you, if you don’t try to bolt your vittles. Fletcherize, you pig! That’s right⁠—you’ll never get a lump in your gizzard. Want some more? Here’s a nice, shiny one.”

The words were indistinguishable, but Sheridan inclined his head to Gurney’s ear and shouted fiercely: “Talkin’ to himself! By George!”

Gurney laughed reassuringly, and shook his head.

Bibbs returned to song:

“Chang! Chang, bash, chang! It’s I!
Who looks a mustang in the eye?
Fearless and bo⁠—”

His father grasped him by the arm. “Here!” he shouted. “Let me show you how to run a strip through there. The foreman says you’re some better’n you used to be, but that’s no way to handle⁠—Get out the way and let me show you once.”

“Better be careful,” Bibbs warned him, stepping to one side.

“Careful? Boh!” Sheridan seized a strip of zinc from the box. “What you talkin’ to yourself about? Tryin’ to make yourself think you’re so abused you’re goin’ wrong in the head?”

“ ‘Abused’? No!” shouted Bibbs. “I was singing⁠—because I like it! I told you I’d come back and like it.”

Sheridan may not have understood. At all events, he made no reply, but began to run the strip of zinc through the machine. He did it awkwardly⁠—and with bad results.

“Here!” he shouted. “This is the way. Watch how I do it. There’s nothin’ to it, if you put your mind on it.” By his own showing then his mind was not upon it. He continued to talk. “All you got to look out for is to keep it pressed over to⁠—”

“Don’t run your hand up with it,” Bibbs vociferated, leaning toward him.

“Run nothin’! You got to⁠—”

“Look out!” shouted Bibbs and Gurney together, and they both sprang forward. But Sheridan’s right hand had followed the strip too far, and the zinc-eater had bitten off the tips of the first and second fingers. He swore vehemently, and wrung his hand, sending a shower of red drops over himself and Bibbs, but Gurney grasped his wrist, and said, sharply:

“Come out of here. Come over to the lavatory in the office. Bibbs, fetch my bag. It’s in my machine, outside.”

And when Bibbs brought the bag to the washroom he found the doctor still grasping Sheridan’s wrist, holding the injured hand over a basin. Sheridan had lost color, and temper, too. He glared over his shoulder at his son as the latter handed the bag to Gurney.

“You go on back to your work,” he said. “I’ve had worse snips than that from a pencil-sharpener.”

“Oh no, you haven’t!” said Gurney.

“I have, too!” Sheridan retorted, angrily. “Bibbs, you go on back to your work. There’s no reason to stand around here watchin’ ole Doc Gurney tryin’ to keep himself awake workin’ on a scratch that only needs a little court-plaster. I slipped, or it wouldn’t happened. You get back on your job.”

“All right,” said Bibbs.

“Here!” Sheridan bellowed, as his son was passing out of the door. “You watch out when you’re runnin’ that machine! You hear what I say? I slipped, or I wouldn’t got scratched, but you⁠—you’re liable to get your whole hand cut off! You keep your eyes open!”

“Yes, sir.” And Bibbs returned to the zinc-eater thoughtfully.

Half an hour later, Gurney touched him on the shoulder and beckoned him outside, where conversation