foreign-born manufacturers but the boy found that the Jewish
establishments were even easier to tabulate than those owned by
Americans, the Hebrew understanding of the details of business being so
thorough.

"That's not so very detailed!" one of these remarked to Hamilton when
the boy had come to the end of his list of questions.

"It's a relief to hear somebody say that," answered the young
census-taker with a laugh, "because I hear a dozen times a day the
complaint that no one could be expected to know as much about a business
as these schedules require."

It was not to be expected that the work would proceed without an
occasional hitch, and Hamilton had one such with a firm of Italian
marble-cutters in which the bookkeeping had been of so curious a
character that it was next to impossible to get out the kind of figures
the government wanted. Another was in a small Chinese place, where they
made little trinkets to sell to tourists in the "Chinatown" districts of
the larger cities, representing them to be imported articles of value.
Another was with a small place run by two brothers, Persians, making
fringes and tassels for fraternal order badges and matters of that kind.
It was interesting to the lad, for he had the chance to see the works in
a number of cases, and he learned a lot about the way many queer things
were made.

But Hamilton's hopes were set on visiting one especial manufacturing
plant in New Haven, and he had determined to ask that he be allowed to
go over it before he left the town. This was the great sporting gun
works. Hamilton was passionately fond of sport, and had owned a
Winchester ever since he was twelve years old. Indeed, he had read up on
guns a good deal, and it was one of his hobbies.

His delight was great, therefore, when at the end of a long day, after
he had turned in his schedule to his chief, the latter said:

"Noble, your work is good. Johnson is faster. Up to last night he had
turned in one, decimal five-two per cent more establishments than you,
but your proportion of capital invested is larger, showing that the
works you went to took more time. Your schedules are better. This takes
a little over one-fifth more of my own time than I had figured at first.
I was going to do the Winchester works myself. I think you can do it.
You had better go ahead. It's complicated, but they'll help you all they
can. There's not much time left."

"Very well, Mr. Burns," said Hamilton decisive