suppose you won't make any radical changes in the selling department, will you?" There was a note of genuine anxiety in his voice.

"Not for the present," Knowlton interjected crisply. "We shall continue the policy and staff of the old company until we get our bearings. Then there will be plenty of opportunity for good men to move up. Meanwhile, we'll size up the efficiency of everybody and see what we've got."

Kane scratched the back of one ear with a pencil and turned this statement over in his mind. I noticed that his eyes were pale and weak, and that his manner was plainly that of a man who had little faith in fortune's star. An efficiency test was clearly one he was not confident of facing, but neither was I, and my sympathy went out to him. I had never seen a man at close range before who actually feared for his bread and butter, and that was what Kane's face showed, as he tried to conciliate the two of us as representatives of the new owners. It was not a pleasant sight. I could tell by Knowlton's sharp glance at him that our engineer was remorselessly applying that uncanny faculty of his of reading men's thoughts, and I guessed Kane had sealed his own doom.

But Knowlton said never a word. Instead he pulled some papers from his pocket, checked his memoranda for the day, and read a few documents which Kane turned over to him. I took out my pipe and started to light it.

"No smoking in the factory!" exclaimed Knowlton sharply.

"Do you mean to say," I protested, "that I've got to be here from seven to six each day without even smoking?"

"Just that," replied Knowlton with a grin. "We lose our insurance if we allow smoking."

At that moment a steam whistle began an infernal din, apparently over my head—a din which was echoed from every point of the compass. Instantly an even worse clatter and roar of machinery began under our feet, and the flimsy wooden floor and partitions vibrated visibly.

"Seven o'clock!" said Knowlton, rising. "The day's work has begun. Come, Ted, we'll take a walk through the machine-shop and look things over. Never mind, Kane—we'll find our own way around. Don't lose time from your job on our account."

With this hint Kane went suddenly back to his desk, while Knowlton and I descended the stairs and entered the machine shop. As we passed through the narrow aisles between closely packed lathes and planers, Knowlton made a series of rapid notes on the back of an envelope. Nothing escaped his eye, from a machine working too slowly to a foreman with too many men to look after. At the time I had no way of judging whether his inspection revealed a satisfactory condition or the reverse. The factory had been bought, of course, after a preliminary inventory of contents and orders on hand, but Knowlton's task was to judge of its efficiency as an operating plant. For over an hour we went from one department to another, until Knowlton's notes had covered all the scraps of paper either of us had in our pockets.

"I guess we'll go upstairs now and talk to Norwood," said Knowlton. "By the way, what did you think of the plant, Ted?" I felt as my old friend Dr. Watson must have felt when Sherlock Holmes asked him one of those sudden posers whose explanation was really so simple.

"It seems very busy," I said with conscious feebleness.

"Yes," he remarked drily, "that busyness is also costing them a lot of money. I think we'll shake this old place up, Ted, before we're through."

As I followed him I covertly looked at my watch. A little after eight! Good heavens, how many hours to six o'clock! It seemed as if I had been up since day before yesterday.

The upper office was now full of clerks and clicking typewriters, presided over by some remarkably pretty girls. At least three of them looked me straight in the eye as I went past, and I made a mental note that they were a great improvement upon the waitresses at Schaefer's. But my thoughts were interrupted by Norwood's coming forward to greet us.

Norwood was one of the young millionaires of Deep Harbor—the son of a father who had helped to create the town and whose capital was the backbone of every enterprise of importance in the city. Young Norwood had recently inherited the overlordship of Deep Harbor, and one of his first acts had been to sell the Deep Harbor Manufacturing Company to the interests represented by my father.

Norwood himself was rather a disappointment. He was a tall, weak-faced, pale young man, whose clothes, neat and costly, were wrong in every particular. His seal ring was too large, his watch chain too heavy, his collar too high, and his cravat too loud. Even his shoes were ornamented with fancy leatherwork in scroll patterns. His manner was cordial to the point of oiliness, yet cold and insincere. In short, I took an instant dislike to him.

Obsequiously he placed chairs for us, closed the door, and produced fat black cigars, thus ignoring the office rule about smoking; and while he was ostensibly listening to Knowlton I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was studying me. As Knowlton ran over the items of his memoranda I kept catching Norwood looking me over out of the corners of his watery blue eyes. It was increasingly clearer that Knowlton's questions and enthusiastic exposition of plans were boring Norwood, for, after fidgeting more and more, he suddenly got up.