d
fuss around and tell me what I'm doing wrong. I want to consult you
about a good many things in the course of a day."

Pete's face was simply a lens through which one could see the feelings
at work beneath, and Bannon knew that he had struck the right chord at
last. "How is it? Does that go?"

"Sure," said Pete. "I never knew you wanted to consult me about
anything, or I'd have been around before."

Friday afternoon Bannon received a note from Grady saying that if he had
any regard for his own interests or for those of his employers, he would
do well to meet the writer at ten o'clock Sunday morning at a certain
downtown hotel. It closed with a postscript containing the disinterested
suggestion that delays were dangerous, and a hint that the writer's time
was valuable and he wished to be informed whether the appointment would
be kept or not.

Bannon ignored the note, and all day Monday expected Grady's appearance
at the office. He did not come, but when Bannon reached his
boarding-house about eight o'clock that evening, he found Grady in his
room waiting for him.

"I can't talk on an empty stomach," said the boss, cheerfully, as he was
washing up. "Just wait till I get some supper."

"I'll wait," said Grady, grimly.

When Bannon came back to talk, he took off his coat and sat down astride
a chair. "Well, Mr. Grady, when you came here before you said it was to
warn me, but the next time you came you were going to begin to act. I'm
all ready."

"All right," said Grady, with a vicious grin. "Be as smart as you like.
I'll be paid well for every word of it and for every minute you've kept
me waiting yesterday and to-night That was the most expensive supper you
ever ate. I thought you had sense enough to come, Mr. Bannon. That's why
I wasted a stamp on you. You made the biggest mistake of your life----"

During the speech Bannon had sat like a man hesitating between two
courses of action. At this point he interrupted:--

"Let's get to business, Mr. Grady."

"I'll get to it fast enough. And when I do you'll see if you can safely
insult the representative of the mighty power of the honest workingman
of this vast land."

"Well?"

"I hear you folks are in a hurry, Mr. Bannon?"

"Yes."

"And that you'll spend anything it costs to get through on time. How'd
it suit you to have all your laborers strike about now? Don't that idea
make you sick?"

"Pretty near."

"Well, they will strike inside two days."

"W