eye and
voice.

"Wimp -- says -- meeting -- going -- on -- now -- cannot -- act --
before -- to-morrow -- Get that."

"Yes," flashed the plunging reply.

"Wimp -- waiting -- your -- report -- defect -- in -- rails."

Clark's brows wrinkled and he bent over the key.

"Cannot -- send -- report -- till -- several -- chemical -- anal --
anal -- "

"Yes -- analyses -- I -- get -- you -- are -- complete -- is -- that --
it."

"Yes." Clark breathed a sigh of relief. His brow was wet.

"When -- will -- that -- be -- Wimp -- asks."

"Three -- days."

"Wimp -- says -- hurry -- up -- things -- shaky -- here -- expect --
attack -- by -- bears -- have tried -- to -- place -- rails --
elsewhere -- but -- not -- successful. Wimp -- says -- good night."

Clark's eyes sparkled with anger and he hammered the key. There were
other things he wanted to say--and must say. But for all his repeated
calls there was only silence, till in an interval, while he rubbed his
throbbing fingers, the receiver began to tilt.

"Wimp -- says -- good night --" it announced with metallic finality.

He got up and stood staring at the thing for a moment, his face heavy
with anger, the group in Wimperley's office vividly before him. He
could see the cold features of Birch, sharpened by the tenseness of the
hour into a visage bloodless and inflexible, with thin tight lips and
narrow expressionless eyes. He could see Stoughton, red with
discomfort and resentment; Riggs' excited and anxious little face, and
Wimperley himself, cast with a new severity; all supremely conscious of
that which probably must be faced on the morrow. And what about
Marsham? Tottering was now their faith in the essential future of the
works and the great cycle of their operations. The wire had
transmitted their decisions, but over its yellow filament had also
trickled their apprehension. With a touch of cynicism he recalled the
congratulatory messages--the very first it had carried.

He went out on the terrace again, seeking the black bulk of the rail
mill in the medley of structures down at the works. Presently he found
and scrutinized it. Somewhere in its gloom lurked an error, or else in
the great furnaces that shouldered nakedly into the moonlit air. With
a sudden sense of fatigue, he turned to his bedroom.

"At any rate the chief constable is with me," he soliloquized
sardonically, "and that's something."

In five minutes he was sleeping profoundly