e wherein a hot iron was hooked on a steel string
which furnished the pressure. By this means he ironed the yoke,
wristbands, and neckband, setting the latter at right angles to the
shirt, and put the glossy finish on the bosom. As fast as he finished
them, he flung the shirts on a rack between him and Martin, who caught
them up and "backed" them. This task consisted of ironing all the
unstarched portions of the shirts.

It was exhausting work, carried on, hour after hour, at top speed. Out
on the broad verandas of the hotel, men and women, in cool white, sipped
iced drinks and kept their circulation down. But in the laundry the air
was sizzling. The huge stove roared red hot and white hot, while the
irons, moving over the damp cloth, sent up clouds of steam. The heat of
these irons was different from that used by housewives. An iron that
stood the ordinary test of a wet finger was too cold for Joe and Martin,
and such test was useless. They went wholly by holding the irons close
to their cheeks, gauging the heat by some secret mental process that
Martin admired but could not understand. When the fresh irons proved too
hot, they hooked them on iron rods and dipped them into cold water. This
again required a precise and subtle judgment. A fraction of a second too
long in the water and the fine and silken edge of the proper heat was
lost, and Martin found time to marvel at the accuracy he developed--an
automatic accuracy, founded upon criteria that were machine-like and
unerring.

But there was little time in which to marvel. All Martin's consciousness
was concentrated in the work. Ceaselessly active, head and hand, an
intelligent machine, all that constituted him a man was devoted to
furnishing that intelligence. There was no room in his brain for the
universe and its mighty problems. All the broad and spacious corridors
of his mind were closed and hermetically sealed. The echoing chamber of
his soul was a narrow room, a conning tower, whence were directed his arm
and shoulder muscles, his ten nimble fingers, and the swift-moving iron
along its steaming path in broad, sweeping strokes, just so many strokes
and no more, just so far with each stroke and not a fraction of an inch
farther, rushing along interminable sleeves, sides, backs, and tails, and
tossing the finished shirts, without rumpling, upon the receiving frame.
And even as his hurrying soul tossed, it was reaching for another shirt.
This went