"Well," he said, "this is business. And we'll keep it this way, too."
She had faced about on the stool and was looking at him with a twinkle in her eye.
"Yes," she said, evidently trying not to laugh; "we'll try to."
He was not looking at her as she spoke, but when, a moment later, the laugh broke away from her, he turned. She was looking at his feet. He glanced down and saw a row of black footprints leading from the door to where he stood, one of them squarely in the centre of the new mat. He gazed ruefully, then he reached into his pocket and drew out a quarter, dropping it in the box.
"Well—" he said, wiping his feet; but the whistle just then gave a long blast, and he did not finish the sentence.
After supper Bannon and Peterson sat in the room they occupied together. In the walk home and during supper there had been the same sullen manner about the younger man that Bannon had observed at noon. Half a day was a long time for Peterson to keep to himself something that bothered him, and before the close of dinner he had begun working the talk around. Now, after a long silence, that Bannon filled with sharpening pencils, he said:
"Some people think a lot of themselves, don't they, Charlie?"
Bannon looked up from his pencils; he was sitting on the edge of the bed.
"She seems to think she's better'n Max and you and me, and everybody. I thought she looked pretty civil, and I didn't say a word she need to have got stuck-up about."
Bannon asked no questions. After waiting to give him an opportunity, Peterson went on:—
"There's going to be a picnic Sunday of the Iron Workers up at Sharpshooters' Park. I know a fellow that has tickets. It'd be just as quiet as anywhere—and speeches, you know. I don't see that she's any better than a lot of the girls that'll be there."
"Do you mean to say you asked her to go?" Bannon asked.
"Yes, and she—"
Bannon had turned away to strop his razor on his hand, and Peterson, after one or two attempts to begin the story, let the subject drop.
CHAPTER VII
Bannon had the knack of commanding men. He knew the difference between an isolated—or better, perhaps, an insulated—man and the same man in a crowd. Without knowing how he did it, he could, nevertheless, distinguish between the signs of temporary ill feeling among the men and the perhaps less apparent danger signal that meant serious mischief.
Since his first day on the job the attitude of the men had worried him a little. There was something in the air he did not like. Peterson, accustomed to handling smaller bodies of men, had made the natural mistake of driving the very large force employed on the elevator with much too loose a rein. The men were still further demoralized by the episode with the walking delegate, Grady, on Thursday night. Bannon knew too much to attempt halfway measures, so he waited for a case of insubordination serious enough to call for severe treatment.
When he happened into the office about the middle of Saturday morning, Miss Vogel handed him two letters addressed to him personally. One was from Brown,—the last paragraph of it as follows:—
Young Page has told MacBride in so many words what we've all been guessing about, that is, that they are fighting to break the corner in December wheat. They have a tremendous short line on the Chicago Board, and they mean to deliver it. Twenty two hundred thousand has got to be in the bins there at Calumet before the first of January unless the Day of Judgment happens along before then. Never mind what it costs you. BROWN.
P.S. MacBride has got down an atlas and is trying to figure out how you got that cribbing to the lake. I told him you put the barge on rollers and towed it up to Ledyard with a traction engine.
The letter from Sloan was to the effect that twelve cars were at that moment on the yard siding, loading with cribbing, and that all of it, something more than eighteen hundred thousand feet, would probably be in Chicago within a week. A note was scribbled on the margin in Sloan's handwriting. "Those fool farmers are still coming in expecting a job. One is out in the yard now. Came clear from Victory. I've had to send out a man to take down the posters."
"That's just like a farmer," Bannon said to Miss Vogel. "Time don't count with him. Tomorrow morning or two weeks from next Tuesday—he can't see the difference. I suppose if one of those posters on an inconspicuous tree happens to be overlooked that some old fellow'll come driving in next Fourth of July."
He buttoned his coat as though going out, but stood looking at her thoughtfully awhile. "All the same," he said, "I'd like to be that way myself; never do anything till tomorrow. I'm going to turn farmer some day. Once I get this job done, I'd like to see the man who can hurry me. I'll say to MacBride: 'I'm willing to work on nice, quiet, easy little jobs that never have to be finished. I'll want to sit at the desk and whittle most of the time. But if you ever try to put me on a rush job I'll quit and buy a small farm.' I could make the laziest farmer in twelve states. Well, I've got to go out on the job."
An elevator is simply a big grain warehouse, and of course the bins where the grain is kept occupy most of the building. But for handling the grain more than bin room is necessary. Beneath the bins is what is called the working story, where is the machinery for unloading cars and for lifting the grain. The cupola, which Bannon was about to frame, is a five-story building perched atop the bins. It contains the appliances for weighing the grain and distributing it.
When Bannon climbed out on top of the bins, he found the carpenters partially flooring over the area, preparatory to putting in place the framework of the cupola. Below them in the bins, like bees in a honeycomb, laborers were taking down the scaffolding which had served in building their walls. At the south side of the building a group of laborers, under one of the foremen, was rigging what is known as a boom hoist, which was to lift the timbers for framing the cupola.
While Bannon stood watching the carpenters, one of them sawed off the end of a plank and dropped it down into the bin. There was a low laugh, and one or two of the men glanced uneasily at Bannon. He spoke to the offender.
"Don't do that again if you want to stay on this job. You know there are men at work down there." Then: "Look here," he called, getting the attention of all the carpenters, "every man that drops anything into the bins gets docked an hour's pay. If he does it twice he leaves the job just as quick as we can make out a time-check. I want you to be careful."
He was picking his way over to the group of men about the hoisting pole, when he heard another general laugh from the carpenters. Turning back he saw them all looking at a fellow named Reilly, who, trying to suppress a smile, was peering with mock concern down into the dark bin. "My hammer slipped," Bannon heard him say in a loud aside to the man nearest him. Then, with a laugh: "Accidents will happen."
Bannon almost smiled himself, for the man had played right into his hand.
He had, in the four days since he took command, already become aware of Reilly and had put him down for the sort ambitious to rise rather in the organization of his union than in his trade.
"I guess we won't take the trouble to dock you," he said. "Go to the office and get your time. And be quick about it, too."
"Did ye mean me?" the man asked impudently, but Bannon, without heeding, went over to the hoist. Presently a rough hand fell on his shoulder. "Say," demanded Reilly again, "did ye mean me?"
"No doubt of that. Go and get your time."
"I guess not," said the man. "Not me. My hammer just slipped. How're you going to prove I meant to do it?"
"I'm not. I'm going to fire you. You ain't laid off, you understand; you're fired. If you ever come back, I'll have you kicked off the place."