The accident to the Screamer had delayed work at the Ledge but a few days. Other men had taken the place of those injured, and renewed efforts had been made by Sanford and Captain Joe to complete to low-water mark the huge concrete disk, forming a bedstone sixty feet in diameter and twelve feet thick, on which the superstructure was to rest. This had been accomplished after three weeks of work, and the men stood in readiness to begin the masonry of the superstructure itself so soon as the four great derricks required in lifting and setting the cut stone of the masonry could be erected. They were only waiting for Mr. Carleton’s acceptance of the concrete disk, the first section of the contract. The superintendent’s certificate of approval was important, one rule of the Department being that no new section of the work should begin until the preceding section was officially approved. Carleton, however, declined to give it. His ostensible reason was that the engineer-in-chief was expected daily at Keyport, and should therefore pass upon the work himself. His real reason was a desire to settle a score with Captain Joe by impeding the progress of the work. This animosity to Captain Joe had been aroused by an article very flattering to the superintendent, published in the “Medford Journal,” in which great credit had been given to Carleton for his “heroism and his prompt efficiency in providing a hospital for the wounded men.” The day after its publication, the “Noank Times,” a political rival, sent to make an investigation of its own, in the course of which the reporter encountered Captain Joe. The captain had not seen the Medford article until it was shown him by the reporter. He thereupon gave the exact facts in regard to the accident and the subsequent care of the wounded men, generously exonerating the government superintendent from all responsibility for the notice; adding with decided emphasis that “Mr. Carleton couldn’t ’a’ said no such thing ’bout havin’ provided the hospital himself, ’cause he was over to Medford to a circus the night the accident happened, and didn’t git home till daylight next mornin’, when everything was over an’ the men was in their beds.” The result of this interview was a double-leaded column in the next issue of the “Noank Times,” which not only ridiculed its rival for the manufactured news, but read a lesson on veracity to Carleton himself. The denial made by the “Times” was the thrust that had rankled deepest; for Carleton, unfortunately for himself, had inclosed the eulogistic article from the “Medford Journal” in his official report of the accident to the Department, and had become the proud possessor of a letter from the engineer-in-chief commending his “promptness and efficiency.”