ome to me; don't go out on the job and make speeches. If you're looking
for fair play, you'll get it. If you're looking for trouble, you'll get
it. Good-morning."

The new _regime_ in operation at the elevator was more of a hardship to
Peterson than to any one else, because it compelled him to be much
alone. Not only was he quite cut off from the society of Max and Hilda,
but it happened that the two or three under-foremen whom he liked best
were on the day shift. The night's work with none of those pleasant
little momentary interruptions that used to occur in the daytime was
mere unrelieved drudgery, but the afternoons, when he had given up
trying to sleep any longer, were tedious enough to make him long for six
o'clock.

Naturally, his disposition was easy and generous, but he had never been
in the habit of thinking much, and thinking, especially as it led to
brooding, was not good for him. From the first, of course, he had been
hurt that the office should have thought it necessary to send Bannon to
supersede him, but so long as he had plenty to do and was in Bannon's
company every hour of the day, he had not taken time to think about it
much. But now he thought of little else, and as time went on he
succeeded in twisting nearly everything the new boss had said or done to
fit his theory that Bannon was jealous of him and was trying to take
from him the credit which rightfully belonged to him. And Bannon had put
him in charge of the night shift, so Peterson came to think, simply
because he had seen that Hilda was beginning to like him.

About four o'clock one afternoon, not many days after Grady's talk with
Bannon, Peterson sat on the steps of his boarding-house, trying to make
up his mind what to do, and wishing it were six o'clock. He wanted to
stroll down to the job to have a chat with his friends, but he had
somewhat childishly decided he wasn't wanted there while Miss Vogel was
in the office, so he sat still and whittled, and took another view of
his grievances. Glancing up, he saw Grady, the walking delegate, coming
along the sidewalk. Now that the responsibility of the elevator was off
his shoulders he no longer cherished any particular animosity toward the
little Irishman, but he remembered their last encounter and wondered
whether he should speak to him or not.

But Grady solved his doubt by calling out cheerfully to know how he was
and turning in toward the steps. "I suppose I ought to lick you after
what