Page:The Relentless City.djvu/49

Rh torn up for some new underground enterprise (Lewis S. Palmer, as a matter of fact, had floated a company to run a new subterranean line across New York, and had been paid a million and a half dollars for the loan of his credit)&hairsp;; and while the cars, which will certainly not cease running till the last trump has been sounded several times, passed over spindle-shanked iron girders and supports, shaken every now and again by the blasting of the rock below, thousands of workmen were toiling day and night deep down in the earth, loading the baskets of the cranes with the splinters of the riven rocks, or giving the larger pieces into the embrace of huge iron pincers that tackled them as a spider tackles a fat fly, and, rising aloft with them above street level, took them along the ropes of their iron web, over the heads of passengers and vehicles, for the carts which waited for them. Elsewhere, half a block of building had vanished almost as the night to make way for something taller, and where yesterday a five-storied building had stood, the site to-day was vacant but for a dozen pistons half buried in the ground, which puffed and shook in a sort of hellish ecstasy of glee at the work, while a gang of men with axe and pick dug out the foundations for the steel house-frames. Yet though to-morrow almost would see the newly completed building again filling up the gap in the street, the exposed walls of the adjacent houses were just for to-day only covered with advertisements, and a notice informed the bewildered shopper that business was going on as usual. That in New York might be taken for granted, but the notice omitted to say where it was going on. But for the crowd in general it was sufficient that work was to be done, and money to be made. That was the whole business and duty of each unit there, and as far as each unit was concerned, the devil might take the rest. Everyone looked tired, worn out, but indefatigable, and extraordinarily patient. One