for real money," and, whirling upon his
heel, Mr. Ripley started upon his usual preliminary examination of
dynamos and engines and boilers.

Quite nonchalantly Mr. Bates, puffing at a particularly villainous
stogie and with his hands resting idly in his pockets, swung after Mr.
Ripley, keeping within almost precisely four feet of him. In the
boiler-room, Ripley, finding Biff still at his heels, said to the
fireman, with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder:

"Rocksey, be sure you keep a good head of steam on to-night if you're
a friend of mine. This is Mr. Assistant Works back here, and he's come
in to knock my block off if the lights flicker."

"Rocksey," a lean man with gray beard-bristles like pins and with
muscles in astounding lumps upon his grimy arms, surveyed Mr. Bates
with a grin which meant volumes.

"Ring a bell when it starts, will you, Con?" he requested.

To this Biff paid not the slightest attention, gazing stolidly at the
red fire where it shone through the holes of the furnace doors; but
when Mr. Ripley moved away Biff moved also. Ripley introduced Biff in
much the same terms to a tall man who was oiling the big,
old-fashioned Corliss, and a sudden gleam came into the tall man's
eyes as he recognized Mr. Bates, but he turned back to his oiling
without smile or comment. Ripley eyed him sharply.

"You'll hold the sponge and water-bottle for me, won't you, Daly?" he
asked, with an evident attempt at jovial conciliation.

Daly deliberately wiped the slender nose of his oil can and went on
oiling.

"What's the matter?" asked Ripley with a frown. "Got a grouch again?"

"Yes, I have," admitted Daly without looking up, and shrugged his
shoulders.

"Then cut it out," said Ripley, "and look real unpeeved when somebody
hands you tickets to the circus."

From that moment Mr. Ripley seemed to take a keen delight in goading
Mr. Bates. He took a sudden dash half-way down the length of the long
room, as if going to the extreme other end of the plant, then suddenly
whirled and retraced his steps to meet Biff coming after him; made an
equally sudden dart for the mysterious switch-board, and seized a
lever as if to throw it, but suddenly changed his mind, apparently,
and went away, leaving Mr. Bates to infer that the throwing of that
particular lever would leave them all in darkness; later, with Biff
ready to spring upon him, he threw that switch to show that it had no
important function to perform at all.