The Corrugated was handlin' a lot of war contracts, too. Course, we was only gettin' our ten per cent., and from some we'd subbed out not even that. It didn't strike me there was any openin' for me until I'd heard Mr. Ellins, for about the fourth time that week, start beefin' about the kind of work we was gettin' done.

"But ain't it all O. K.'d by government inspectors?" I asks.

"Precisely why I am suspicious," says he. "Not three per cent. turned back! And on rush work that's too good to be true. Looks to me like careless inspecting--or worse. Yet every man I've sent out has brought in a clean bill; even for the Wonder Motors people, who have that sub-contract for five hundred tanks. And I wouldn't trust that crowd to pa.s.s the hat for an orphans' home. I wish I knew of a man who could--could---- By the Great Isosceles! Torchy!"

I knew I was elected when he first begun squintin' at me that way. But I couldn't see where I'd be such a wonderful find.

"A hot lot I know about buildin' armored motor-trucks, Mr. Ellins," says I. "They could feed me anything."

"You let 'em," says he; "and meanwhile you unlimber that high-tension intellect of yours and see what you can pick up. Remember, I shall expect results from you, young man. When can you start for Cleveland?

To-night, eh? Good! And just note this: It isn't merely the Corrugated Trust you are representing: it's Uncle Sam and the Allies generally. And if anything shoddy is being pa.s.sed, you hunt it out. Understand?"

Yep. I did. And I'll admit I was some thrilled with the idea. But I felt like a Boy Scout being sent to round up a gang of gunfighters. I skips home, though, packs my bag, and climbs aboard the night express.

When I'd finally located the Wonder works, and had my credentials read by everyone, from the rookie sentry at the gate to the a.s.sistant General Manager, and they was convinced I'd come direct from Old Hickory Ellins, they starts pa.s.sin' out the smooth stuff. Oh, yes! Certainly! Anything special I wished to see?

"Thanks," says I. "I'll go right through."

"But we have four acres of shops, you know," suggests the A. G. M., smilin' indulgent.

"Maybe I can do an acre a day," says I. "I got lots of time."

"That's the spirit," says he, clappin' me friendly on the shoulder.

"Walter, call in Mr. Marvin."

He was some grand little demonstrator, Mr. Marvin--one of these round-faced, pink-cheeked, chunky built young gents, who was as chummy and as entertainin' from the first handshake as if we'd been room-mates at college. I can't say how well posted he was on what was goin' on in the different departments he hustled me through, but he knew enough to smother me with machinery details.

"Now, here we have a battery of six hogging machines," he'd say. "They cut the gears, you know."

"Oh, yes," I'd say, tryin' to look wise.

It was that way all through the trip. I saw two or three thousand sweaty men in smeared overalls and sleeveless undershirts putterin' around lathes and things that whittled shavings off shiny steel bars, or hammered red-hot chunks of it into different shapes, or bit holes in great sheets of steel. I watched electric cranes the size of trolley cars juggle chunks of metal that weighed tons. I listened to the roar and rattle and crash and bang, and at the end of two hours my head was whirlin' as fast as some of them big belt wheels; and I knew almost as much about what I'd seen as a two-year-old does about the tick-tock daddy holds up to her ear.

Young Mr. Marvin don't seem discouraged, though. He suggests that we drive into town for lunch. We did, in a canary-colored roadster that purred along at about fifty most of the way. We fed at a swell club, along with a bunch of cheerful young lieutenants of industry who didn't seem worried about the high cost of anything. I gathered that most of 'em was in the same line as Mr. Marvin--supplies or munitions. From the general talk, and the casual way they ordered pink c.o.c.ktails and expensive cigars, I judged it wasn't exactly a losin' game.

Nor they didn't seem anxious about gettin' back to punch in on the time-clocks. About two-thirty we adjourns to the Country Club, and if I'd been a mashie fiend I might have finished a hard day's work with a game of golf. I thought I ought to do some more shops, though. Why, to be sure! But at five we knocked off again, and I was towed to another club, where we had a plunge in a marble pool so as to be in shape for a little dinner Mr. Marvin was gettin' up for me. Quite some dinner! There was a jolly trip out to an amus.e.m.e.nt park later on. Oh, the Wonder folks were no tightwads when it came to showin' special agents of the Corrugated around.

I tried another day of it before givin' up. It was no use. They had me buffaloed. So I thanked all hands and hinted that maybe I'd better be goin' back. I hope I didn't deceive anyone, for I did go back--to the hotel. But by night I'd invested $11.45 in a second-hand outfit--warranted steam-cleaned--and I had put up $6. more for a week's board with a Swede lady whose front porch faced the ten-foot fence guardin' the Wondor Motors' main plant. Also, Mrs. Petersen had said it was a cinch I could get a job. Her old man would show me where in the mornin'.

And say, mornin' happens early out in places like that. By 5:30 A.M. I could smell bacon grease, and by six-fifteen breakfast was all over and Petersen had lit his corn-cob pipe.

"Coom!" says he in pure Scandinavian.

This trip, I didn't make my entrance in over the Turkish rugs of the private office. I was lined up with a couple of dozen others against a fence about tenth from a window where there was a "Men Wanted" sign out.

Being about as much of a mechanic as I am a brunette, I made no wild bluffs. I just said I wanted a job. And I got it--riveter's helper, whatever that might be. By eight-thirty my name and number was on the payroll, and the foreman of shop No. 19 was introducin' me to my new boss.

"Here, Mike," says he. "Give this one a try-out."

His name wasn't Mike. It was something like Sneezowski. He was a Pole who'd come over three years ago to work for John D. at Bayonne, New Jersey, but had got into some kind of trouble there. I didn't wonder. He had wicked little eyes, one lopped ear, and a ragged mustache that stood out like tushes. But he sure could handle a pneumatic riveter rapid, and when it came to reprovin' me for not keepin' the pace he expressed himself fluent.

In the course of a couple of hours, though, I got the hang of how to work them rivet tongs without droppin' 'em more 'n once every five minutes. But I think it was the grin I slipped Mike now and then that got him to overlookin' my awkward motions. Believe me, too, by six o'clock I felt less like grinnin' than any time I could remember. I never knew you could ache in so many places at once. From the ankles down I felt fine. And yet, before the week was out I was helpin' Mike speed up.

It didn't look promisin' for sleuth work at first. Half a dozen times I was on the point of chuckin' the job. But the thoughts of havin' to face Old Hickory with a blank report kept me pluggin' away. I begun to get my bearin's a bit to see things, to put this and that together.

We was workin' on shaped steel plates, armor for the tanks. Now and then one would come through with some of the holes only quarter or half punched. Course, you couldn't put rivets in them places.

"How about these?" I asks.

"Aw, wottell!" says Mike. "Forget it."

"But what if the inspector sees?" I insists.

Mike gurgles in his throat, indicatin' mirth.

"Th' inspec'!" he chuckles. "Him wink by his eye, him. Ya! You see! Him coom Sat'day."

And I swaps chuckles with Mike. Also, by settin' up the schooners at Carlouva's that evenin', I got Mike to let out more professional secrets along the same line. There was others who joined in. They bragged of chipped gears that was shipped through with the bad cogs covered with grease, of flawy drivin' shafts, of cheesy armor-plate that you could puncture with a tack-hammer.

While it was all fresh that night I jotted down pages of such gossip in a little red note-book. I had names and dates. That bunch of piece-workers must have thought I was a bear for details, or else nutty in the head; but they was too polite to mention it so long as I insisted each time that it was my buy.

Anyway, I got quite a lot of first-hand evidence as to the kind of inspectin' done by the army officer a.s.signed to this particular plant. I had to smile, too, when I saw Mr. Marvin towin' him through our shop Sat.u.r.day forenoon. Maybe they was three minutes breezin' through. And I didn't need the extra smear of s.m.u.t on my face. Marvin never glanced my way. This was the same officer who'd been in on our dinner party, too.

Yes, I found chattin' with Mike and his friends a lot more illuminatin'

than listenin' to Mr. Marvin. So, when I drew down my second pay envelop, I told the clerk I was quittin'. I don't mind sayin', either, that it seemed good to splash around in a reg'lar bath-tub once more and to look a sirloin steak in the face again. A stiff collar did seem odd, though.

Me and Mr. Ellins had some session. We went through that red note-book thorough. He was breathin' a bit heavy at times, and he chewed hard on his cigar all the way; but he never blew a fuse until forty-eight hours later. The General Manager of Wonder Motors, four department heads, and the army officer detailed as inspector was part of the audience. They'd been called on the carpet by wire, and was grouped around one end of our directors' table. At the 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 pa.s.ses 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.