"Yes," admitted Mr. Shull; "so he was, for a fact. But then he had influence enough to get government jobs. I don't say there ain't money in that. If Dwight, now, could get a berth on the canal, say, it 'ud be a horse of another color. They say, there's some places there that pay as much as $3 a day. That's how George Washington got his start, and, besides, he owned his own house and lot to begin with. But you'll notice that he dropped surveyin' like a hot potato the minute there was any soldierin' to do. He knew which side _his_ bread was buttered on!" "Well," said the boy, slapping the last plates sharply into the tub, "that's just what Dwight's doin' too, ain't it?" "Yes," Mr. Shull conceded; "but it ain't the same thing. You won't find Dwight Ransom gettin' to be a general, or much of anything else. He's a nice fellow enough, in his way, of course; but, somehow, after it's all said and done, there ain't much to him. I always sort o' felt, when I was out with him, that by good rights I ought to be working the level and him hammerin' in the stakes." The boy sniffed audibly as he bore away the acid-jar. Mr. Shull went over to the bench, and took up a chisel with a meditative air. After a moment he lifted his head and listened, with aroused interest written all over his face. There had been audible from the floor above, at intervals, the customary noises of the camera being wheeled about to different points under the skylight. There came echoing downward now quite other and most unfamiliar sounds—the clatter of animated, even gay, conversation, punctuated by frank outbursts of laughter. Newton Shull could hardly believe his ears: but they certainly did tell him that there were three parties to that merriment overhead. It was so strange that he laid aside the chisel, and tiptoed out into the reception-room, with a notion of listening at the stair door. Then he even more hurriedly ran back again. They were coming downstairs. It might have been a whole wedding-party that trooped down the resounding stairway, the voices rising above the clump of Dwight's artillery boots and sword on step after step, and overflowed into the stuffy little reception-room with a cheerful tumult of babble. The new partner and the boy looked at each other, then directed a joint stare of bewilderment toward the door. Julia Parmalee had pushed her way behind the show-case, and stood in the entrance to the work-room, peering about her with an affectation of excited curiosity which she may have thought pretty and playful, but which the boy, at least, held to be absurd.