"We've got to take on a lot of new men for the next two years--as many as we can of skilled workmen. The break will have to be made sometime. Anyhow, if you'll risk it they've got a job for you in Shed Number Two--cutting and squaring for a while--forty cents an hour--eight hour day. I'll telephone to the boss if you want it." "I do." He took up the desk-telephone and gave his message. "It's all right." He drew out a ledger from beneath the desk. "What's your letter?" "Letter?" The man looked startled for a moment. "Yes, initial of your last name." "G." The manager found the letter, thrust in his finger, opened the page indicated and shoved the book over the desk towards the applicant. He handed him his pen. "Write your name, your age, and what you're native of." He indicated the columns. The man took the pen. He seemed at first slightly awkward in handling it. The entry he made was as follows: "Louis C. Googe--thirty-four--United States." The manager glanced at it. "That's a common enough name in Maine and these parts," he said. Then he pointed through the window. "That's the shed over there--the middle one. The boss'll give you some tools till you get yours." "Thank you." The man put on his cap and went out. "Well, I'll be hanged!" was all the manager said as he looked after the applicant. Then he rose, went to the office door and watched the man making his way through the stone-yards towards the sheds. "Well, boys," he said further, turning to the two men bending over the plans, "that suit ain't exactly a misfit, but it hasn't seen the light of day for a good many years--and it's the same with the man. What in thunder is he doing in the sheds! Did he say anything specially to you before I came in?" "No; only he seemed mighty interested in the plans, examined the detail of some of them--as if he knew." "We'll keep our eyes on him." The manager went back to his desk. IV Perhaps the dreariest environment imaginable is a stone-cutters' shed on a bleak day in the first week in March. The large ones stretching along the north shore of Lake Mesantic are no exception to this statement. A high wind from the northeast was driving before it particles of ice, and now and then a snow flurry. It penetrated every crack and crevice of the huge buildings, the second and largest of which covered a ground space of more than an acre. Every gust made itself both felt and heard among the rafters. Near the great doors the granite dust whirled in eddies.