r whom He
did not provide a place, a duty. You will succeed. You may even get to
'the top,' that roomy plane where there are so few competitors. I want
you to count me your friend. I, too, am a self-made man. There are few
obstacles one cannot conquer, given good health and determination."

Then once more the employer's gaze rested upon the crutches, and his
heart misgave him that he had roused ambitions which could not be
realized. The poor cripple was handicapped from the start by his
infirmity.

Hallam again saw the expression of the other's face, and again it nerved
him to a firmer will.

"Even that shall not hinder, sir; and now if you will explain to me the
work, I'll make a try at it right away."

Mr. Metcalf placed the designs upon a sloping table, at one side the
office, and Hallam took the chair before it, as requested. Then the
superintendent went over the system of numbering the designs, and
illustrated briefly.

"Now you try. I'll watch. Go on as if I were not here. If I do not
speak, consider that you are working correctly."

Hallam's intelligence was of a fine order, and he had always been a keen
observer. Before Mr. Metcalf had finished his explanations the lad had
grasped the whole idea of the work, and he took up the pen the gentleman
laid down with the confidence of one who understood exactly what he had
to do.

"'Knowledge is power,' there is no truer saying," remarked the teacher,
watching the tyro's eager efforts. "It's as easy as A B C to you,
apparently."

"It seems very simple. I think I would enjoy it better, though, if I
could see the application."

"How the patterns are used?"

"Yes."

"Come this way."

Which was not by the shorter one of the stairway on the cliff, up which
Fayette had once forced the reluctant Pepita, but around by the sloping
wagon track and into the lower rooms of the great building. Already the
lad knew most of these by the descriptions his sister had given him, but
no description could equal the facts. As she had done, so he experienced
that thrill of excitement, as he realized the mighty, throbbing life all
around him, of which the wonderful machinery and the human hands and
brains which controlled it seemed but parts of one vast whole. His eyes
kindled, his cheeks flushed, and, as Amy had done, he forgot in his
eagerness over the new scene that others might be observing him and his
deformity.

At the weavers' looms he was "all eyes and ears," as one