He worked feverishly.  After a while it became acute torture.  He felt as if every axle he handled was the last he could manage—­but he forced himself to just one more and then just one more—­and another.  He worked in a daze.  Thought-processes seemed to stop.  He was just a mechanism for performing certain set acts.  The pain was gone—­ everything was gone but the stabbing necessity for getting another axle on that chute in time.  He wanted to stop at a certain stage, but there was something in him which would not allow it.  After that he didn’t care.  “Another. ...  Another. ...  Another...” his brain sang over and over endlessly.  He was wet with perspiration; he staggered under the weights; he was exhausted, but he could not stop.  It was as if he were on a treadmill where he had to keep stepping on and on and on whether he could take another step or not. ...  After a century the noon whistle blew.

Bonbright did not leave his place.  He simply sagged down in his tracks and lay there, eyes shut, panting.  Gradually his brain cleared, but he was too weary to move.  Then thirst drove him to motion and he dragged himself to the wash room, cramped, aching, and there he drank and sopped himself with cold water. ...  So this was what men did to live!  No wonder men were dissatisfied; no wonder men formed unions and struck and rioted!...  Bonbright was getting in an efficient school the point of view of the laborer.

In the afternoon Malcolm Lightener stood and watched Bonbright, though Bonbright did not see, for he was working in a red haze again, unconscious of everything but that insistent demand in his brain for “another. ...  Another. ...  Another. ...”  Lightener watched, granite face expressionless, and then walked away.

Bonbright did not hear the evening whistle.  He placed another axle on the chute, but no one was below to take it.  He wondered dimly what was the matter. ...  A Guinea from the next chute regarded him curiously, then walked over and touched his shoulder with dirty hand, and wafted garlic in his face.  “Time for quit,” said the man.

Bonbright sat down where he was.  It was over.  That day was over.  Not another axle, not another, not another.  He laid his head against the chute and shut his eyes. ...  Presently he staggered to his feet and walked blindly to the stairway.  At the bottom stood Malcolm Lightener, not there by accident, but with design to test Bonbright’s metal to the utmost.  He placed himself there for Bonbright to see, to give Bonbright opportunity to beg off, to squeal.

Bonbright, shoulders drooping, legs dragging, face drawn, eyes burning, would have passed him without recognition, without caring who it was he passed, but that did not suit Lightener’s purpose.

“Well, Bonbright?” he said.

Sudden fire flashed in Bonbright’s brain.  He stopped, and with the knuckles of a hand that was torn and blistered and trembling, he knocked on Lightener’s broad chest as he would have knocked on a door that refused to open.  “Damn your axles,” he said, thickly.  “I can get them there—­another—­and another—­and another—­and another. ...  They’re too slow below. ...  Make ’em come faster.  I can keep up. ...”  And all the time he was rapping on Lightener’s chest.