as sooin eat my supper off a tombstone as off wer
kitchen table."

He faced danger with reckless unconcern every day of his life. He was
employed as a "vessel-man" at the Leeds Steel Works, working on a
twelve-hours' shift, and his duty was to attend to the huge "vessels" or
crucibles in which the molten pig-iron is converted by the Bessemer
process into steel. The operation is one of enthralling interest and
beauty, and Job Hesketh's soul was in his work. The molten iron from the
blast furnaces flows along its channel into huge "ladles" or cauldrons,
and from there it is conveyed into a still larger reservoir or "mixer,"
where the greater part of the slag--which floats as a scum on the
surface--is drawn off. Then the purified metal passes into other
cauldrons, which are borne along by hydraulic machinery and their
contents gently tipped into the crucibles, which lower their gaping
mouths to receive the daffodil stream of molten iron. When their maws
are full, the crucibles are once more brought into an erect position,
and the process of converting iron into steel begins. A blast of air is
driven through the liquid metal, and the "vessels" are at once changed
into fountains of fire. A gigantic spray of flame and sparks rises from
their gaping mouths and ascends to a height of twenty feet, changing its
colour from green to gold and from gold to violet and blue as the impure
gases of sulphur and phosphorus are purged by the blast. For twenty
minutes this continues, and then the roar of the blast and the fiery
spray die down. What entered the crucible as iron is now ready to be
poured forth as steel. Once more the "vessels" are lowered and made to
discharge their contents. First comes a molten cascade of basic slag
which is borne away to cool, then to be ground to finest powder, before
its quickening power is given to pasture and cornfield, imparting a
deeper purple to the clover and a mellower gold to the rippling ears of
wheat. When all the slag has been drawn off, there is a moment's pause,
and then a new cascade begins. The steel is beginning to flow, not in a
daffodil stream like the slag, but in a cascade of exquisite turquoise
blue, melting away at the sides into iridescent opal. Sometimes a great
cloud of steam from the pit below passes across the mouth of the
crucible, and then the torrent of molten steel takes on all the colours
of the rainbow, and the great shed, with its alert, swiftly moving
figures, is suffu