eople in an
office a thousand miles away can't know everything, and that's a fact. And
so he laid you off."

"Oh, no, I ain't quite laid off--yet. He's put me in charge of the night
shift."

"So you're working nights, then? It seemed to me you was working fast
enough in the daytime to satisfy anybody. But I suppose some rich man is
in a hurry for it and you must do your best to accommodate him."

"You bet, he's in a hurry for it. He won't listen to reason at all. Says
the bins have got to be chock full of grain before January first, no
matter what happens to us. He don't care how much it costs, either."

"I must be going along," said Grady, getting to his feet. "That man must
be in a hurry. January first! That's quick work, and he don't care how
much it costs him. Oh, these rich devils! They're hustlers, too, Mr.
Peterson. Well, good-night to you."

Peterson saw Bannon twice every day,--for a half hour at night when he
took charge of the job, and for another half hour in the morning when he
relinquished it. That was all except when they chanced to meet during
Bannon's irregular nightly wanderings about the elevator. As the days had
gone by these conversations had been confined more and more rigidly to
necessary business, and though this result was Peterson's own fringing
about, still he charged it up as another of his grievances against Bannon.

When, about an hour after his conversation with Grady, he started down to
the elevator to take command, he knew he ought to tell Bannon of his
conversation with Grady, and he fully intended doing so. But his
determination oozed away as he neared the office, and when he finally saw
Bannon he decided to say nothing about it whatever. He decided thus partly
because he wished to make his conversation with Bannon as short as
possible, partly because he had not made up his mind what significance, if
any, the incident had, and (more than either of these reasons) because
ever since Grady had repeated the phrase: "He don't care what it costs
him," Peterson had been uneasily aware that he had talked too much.

CHAPTER X

Grady's affairs were prospering beyond his expectations, confident though
he had been. Away back in the summer, when the work was in its early
stages, his eye had been upon it; he had bided his time in the somewhat
indefinite hope that something would turn up. But he went away jubilant
from his conversation with Peterson, for it seemed that all the cards were