As he finished, Captain Charlie pushed his chair back from the table and, finding his pipe, proceeded to fill it with the grim determination of an old-time minuteman ramming home a charge in his Bunker Hill musket. Later the two men went out to enjoy their pipes on the lawn in the cool of the evening. They were discussing the industrial situation when Mary, having finished her household work for the night, joined them. "I forgot to tell you," she said, "that Jake Vodell called to-day." "Again!" exclaimed Charlie. "If Vodell wants to talk with us he'll have to come when we are at home," said Pete Martin, slowly, looking at his daughter. With a laugh, the young woman returned, "But I don't think that it was you or Charlie that he wanted to see this time, father." "What did he want?" demanded her brother quickly. "He wanted me to go with him to a dance next Tuesday," she answered demurely. "Huh," came in a tone of disgust from Charlie. The father asked, quietly, "And what did you say to him, Mary?" "I told him that I went to dances only with my friends." "Good!" said Captain Charlie. "And what then?" asked Pete. "Then," she hesitated, "then he said something about my being careful that I had the right sort of friends and referred to Charlie and John." "Yes?" said Mary's father. "He said that the only use John Ward had for Charlie was to get a line on the union and the plans of the men--that his friendship was only a pretext in order that he might use Charlie as a sort of spy and that the union men wouldn't stand for it." Captain Charlie muttered something under his breath that he could not speak aloud in the presence of his sister. Pete Martin deliberately knocked the ashes from his pipe. "Then," continued Mary, "he talked about how everybody knew that John was nothing but a"--she laughed mockingly at her brother--"a silk-hatted swell who couldn't hold his job an hour if it wasn't that his father owned the Mill, and that Charlie was a hundred times more competent to manage the business. He said that anybody could see how Charlie's promotion in the army proved him superior to John, who was never anything but a common private." Captain Charlie laughed aloud. "John and I understand all about that superiority business. I was lucky, that's all--our captain just happened to be looking in my direction. Believe me, good old John was just as busy as I ever dared to be, only it was his luck to be busy at some other point that the captain didn't see." "Is that all Jake had to say, daughter?" "No," answered the young woman, slowly. "I--I am afraid I was angry at what he called John--I mean at what he said about Charlie and John's friendship--and so I told him what I thought about him and Sam Whaley and their crowd, and asked him to go and not come back again except to see you or Charlie." "Good for you, Mary!" exclaimed her brother. But the old workman said nothing. "And how did Jake take his dismissal?" asked Charlie, presently.