“Cut it out,” was the gruff interruption. “I’m busy now, and you are delaying the game. Tag along behind us when you are ready to drive up, and we’ll make room for you if we can.” Then to his farmer helpers: “Now, then--are you fellows going to let those mules rest all day? Push ’em into the collars and let’s go somewhere! _Hi!_ you fellows up ahead--straighten out those leaders!” The cherubic smile was at its shining best when Carfax turned away and sauntered back toward the coke-ovens. Human atoms are among the most interesting things in the world, once the study of them has passed the elementary stages. Carfax, deep in the contemplation of the subject, had reached the ovens themselves before he saw two men coming toward him, stopping at each stoke-door to allow the taller of the two to go on his hands and knees to inspect the cavern-like interiors. Carfax recognized the shorter of the pair at once. It was Thaxter. “Mr. Carfax, shake hands with Mr. Thirlwall, our consulting engineer--or rather, you’d better not, because his hands are dirty: Mr. Thirlwall, this is Mr. Poictiers Carfax, Mr. Tregarvon’s friend and financial backer.” Thus the bookkeeper, when Carfax came up. Carfax acknowledged the introduction and shook hands with the tall man, in spite of the warning. “Delighted,” he murmured; “always delighted to meet any friend of Mr. Thaxter’s. Tregarvon is up the road a bit, wrestling with a transportation problem. Shall I send for him?” Thaxter negatived the suggestion at once. “It isn’t at all necessary to take him away from his work,” he protested genially. “Mr. Thirlwall was with us for the day, and we thought we would run down and have a look at your coking-plant. It’s in rather bad repair, isn’t it?” Now what Carfax did not know about coking-plants would have filled volumes, but he was careful not to betray his ignorance. “There are years of service in these old ovens yet,” he asserted confidently. “Don’t you think so, Mr. Thirlwall? But as to that, we should expect to put them in good repair if any one wished to buy them.” “Mr. Tregarvon is still in the mind to sell?” queried the round-faced bookkeeper. “Candidly, Vance doesn’t know his own mind from one day to another,” said Carfax, parrying nimbly. “But I guess we are all that way, more or less; up one day and down the next.” The tall engineer smiled because it seemed obvious that he was expected to. “You have been having some more bad luck up on the mountain, so Mr. Thaxter tells me,” he put in. “It seems rather a pity that you and your friend won’t take the word of those who know, and stop throwing good money away.” “It is a pity, isn’t it?” Carfax concurred heartily. “But if we didn’t spend money in this way, heaven only knows in what other foolish enterprise we might be investing.” “That is a new power-plant you are hauling up the hill?” the engineer inquired. “Brand-new,” boasted Tregarvon’s proxy.