nd that the factory's goin' to stop next Sat'd'y.' I
thought he'd show some surprise; but he didn't. He just shot a splash
of tobacco-juice through that missin' tooth of his and says, 'I wouldn't
if I's you.' And I says, 'Goodness knows I hate to; but there's no way
out of it.' And he wopsed his cud round and said, 'Mebbe there is.'
'What do you mean?' I says. And he says, 'Fact is, Eddie'--he always
called me Mr. Pouch or Boss before, but I couldn't say anything to him,
seeing--"

"I know!" Ellaphine almost screamed. "But what'd he say? What's the
upshot?"

Eddie went on at his ox-like gait. "'Well,' he says, 'fact is,
Eddie,' he says, 'I been expectin' this, and I been figgerin' if they
wasn't a way somewhere to keep a-runnin',' says he; 'and I been talkin'
to certain parties that believes as I do, that the fault ain't with the
feather-duster business, but with the way it's run,' he says. 'People
gotter have feather dusters,' he says; 'but they gotter be gave to 'em
right.' O' course I knew he was gettin' at me, but I was in no p'sition
to talk back."

"Oh, please, Eddie!" Ellaphine moaned. "Please tell me! I'm goin' crazy
to know the upshot of it, and I smell the pie burnin'--it's rhubob,
too."

"You got rhubob pie for dinner to-day?" Eddie chortled. "Oh, crickety,
that's fine!"

He followed her into the kitchen and helped her carry the things to the
dining-room, where they waited on each other in alternate dashes and
clashes of "Lemme get it!" and "You set right still!"

Eventually he reached the upshot, which was that Mr. Pittinger thought
he might raise money to run the factory if Eddie would give him the
control and drop out. Eddie concluded, with a burst of rapture: "I'm so
tickled I wisht I could telegraft poor Uncle Loren that everything's all
right!"

VIII

It was an outrageous piece of petty finance on high models, and it
euchred Eddie out of everything he had in the world except his illusion
that Jabez was working for the good of the factory.

Eddie always said "The Fact'ry" in the tone that city people use when
they say "The Cathedral."

Ellaphine saw through the wiles of Jabez and the measly capitalists he
had bound together, and she was ablaze with rage at them and with pity
for her tender-hearted child-husband; but she did not reveal these
emotions to Eddie.

She encouraged him to feast on the one sweetmeat of the situation: that
the hands would not be turned off and the factory would