other end was Old Hickory, Mr. Robert, Piddie,
and me.

Item by item, Mr. Ellins had sketched out to the Wonder crowd the bunk
stuff they'd been slippin' over. First they tried protestin' indignant;
then they made a stab at actin' hurt; but in the end they just looked
plain foolish.

"My dear Mr. Ellins," put in the General Manager, "one cannot watch
every workman in a plant of that magnitude. Besides," here he hunches
his shoulders, "if the government is satisfied----"

"Hah!" snorts Old Hickory. "But it isn't. For I'm the government in this
instance. I'm standing for Uncle Sam. That's what I meant when I took
those ten per cent. contracts. I'm too old to go out and fight his
enemies abroad, but I can stay behind and watch for yellow-livered
buzzards such as you. Call that business, do you? Fattening your
dividends by sending our boys up against the Prussian guns in junky
motor-tanks covered with tin armor! Bah! Your ethics need chloride of
lime on them. And you come here whining that you can't watch your men!
By the great sizzling sisters, we'll see if you can't! You will put in
every missing rivet, replace every flawy plate, and make every machine
perfect, or I'll smash your little two-by-four concern so flat the
bankruptcy courts won't find enough to tack a libel notice on. Now go
back and get busy."

They seemed in a hurry to start, too.

An hour or so later, when Old Hickory had stopped steaming, he passes
out a different set of remarks to me. Oh, the usual grateful boss stuff.
Even says he's going to make the War Department give me a commission,
with a special detail.

"Wouldn't that be wonderful!" says Vee, clappin' her hands. "Do you
really think he will? A lieutenant, perhaps?"

"That's what he mentioned," says I.

"Really!" says Vee, makin' a rush at me.

"Wait up!" says I. "Halt, I mean. Now, as you were! Sal-ute!"

"Pooh!" says Vee, continuin' her rush.

But say, she knows how to salute, all right. Her way would break up an
army, though. All the same, I guess I've earned it, for by Monday night
I'll be up in a Syracuse shovel works, wearin' a one-piece business suit
of the Never-rip brand, and I'll likely have enough grease on me to
lubricate a switch-engine.

"It's lucky you don't see me, Vee," says I, "when I'm out savin' the
country. You'd wonder how you ever come to do it."

CHAPTER IX

A CARRY-ON FOR CLARA

"Now turn around," says Vee. "Oh, Torchy! Why, you look perfectly--