And it was so.  They were down in the pits mixing the mortar, were the women.  They were carrying great pails of it.  They were hauling bricks up one ladder and down.  They wore short, full skirts with a musical-comedy-chorus effect.  Some of them looked seventy and some seventeen.  It was fearful work for a woman.  A keen wind was blowing across the river.  Their hands were purple.

“Pick Mizzi,” said Wallie.  “If you can pick her I’ll know I’m right.  But I know it, anyway.”

Five minutes passed.  The two men stood silent.  “The one with the walk and the face,” said Hahn, then.  Which wasn’t very bright of him, because they all walked and they all had faces.  “Going up the pit-ladder now.  With the pail on her head.”  Wallie gave a little laugh of triumph.  But then, Hahn wouldn’t have been Hahn had he not been able to pick a personality when he saw it.

Years afterward the reviewers always talked of Mizzi’s walk.  They called it her superb carriage.  They didn’t know that you have to walk very straight, on the balls of your feet, with your hips firm, your stomach held in flat, your shoulders back, your chest out, your chin out and a little down, if you are going to be at all successful in balancing a pail of mortar on your head.  After a while that walk becomes a habit.

“Watch her with that pail,” said Wallie.

Mizzi filled the pail almost to the top with the heavy white mixture.  She filled it quickly, expertly.  The pail, filled, weighed between seventeen and twenty kilos.  One kilo is equal to about two and one fifth pounds.  The girl threw down her scoop, stooped, grasped the pail by its two handles, and with one superb, unbroken motion raised the pail high in her two strong arms and placed it on her head.  Then she breathed deeply, once, set her whole figure, turned stiffly, and was off with it.  Sid Hahn took on a long breath as though he himself had just accomplished the gymnastic feat.

“Well, so far it’s pretty good.  But I don’t know that the American stage is clamouring for any hod carriers and mortar mixers, exactly.”

A whistle blew.  Twelve o’clock.  Bricks, mortar, scoops, shovels were abandoned.  The women, in their great clod-hopping shoes, flew chattering to the tiny hut where their lunch boxes were stored.  The men followed more slowly, a mere handful of them.  Not one of them wore overalls or apron.  Out again with their bundles and boxes of food—­very small bundles.  Very tiny boxes.  They ate ravenously the bread and sausage and drank their beer in great gulps.  Fifteen minutes after the whistle had blown the last crumb had vanished.

“Now, then,” said Wallie, and guided Hahn nearer.  He looked toward Mizzi.  Everyone looked toward her.  Mizzi stood up, brushing crumbs from her lap.  She had a little four-cornered black shawl, folded cross-wise, over her head and tied under her chin.  Her face was round and her cheeks red.  The shawl, framing this, made her look very young and cherubic.