Then, too, I found that the gang was bringing me into closer touch with my superiors. One day I was called to the office of the firm and there I met the two men who until now had been nothing to me but two names. For a year I had stared at these names painted in black on white boards and posted about the grounds of every job upon which I had worked. I had never thought of them as human beings so much as some hidden force--like the unseen dynamo of a power plant. They were both Irish-Americans--strong, prosperous-looking men. Somehow they made me distinctly conscious of my own ancestry. I don't mean that I was over-proud--in a way I don't suppose there was anything to boast of in the Carletons--but as I stood before these men in the position of a minor employee I suppose that unconsciously I looked for something in my past to offset my present humiliating situation. And from a business point of view, it was humiliating. The Carletons had been in this country two hundred years and these men but twenty-five or thirty and yet I was the man who stood while they faced me in their easy chairs before their roll-top desks. It was then that I was glad to remember there hadn't been a war in this country in which a Carleton had not played his part. I held myself a little better for the thought. They were unaffected and business-like but when they spoke it was plain "Carleton" and when I spoke it was "Mr. Corkery," or "Mr. Galvin." That was right and proper enough. They had called me in to consult with me on a big job which they were trying to figure down to the very lowest point. They were willing to get out of it with the smallest possible margin of profit for the advertisement it would give them and in view of future contracts with the same firm which it might bring. The largest item in it was the handling of the dirt. They showed me their blue prints and their rough estimate and then Mr. Corkery said: "How much can you take off that, Carleton?" I told him I would need two or three hours to figure it out. He called a clerk. "Give Carleton a desk," he said. Then he turned to me: "Stay here until you've done it," he said. It took me all the forenoon. I worked carefully because it seemed to me that here was a big chance to prove myself. I worked at those figures as though I had every dollar I ever hoped to have at stake. I didn't trim it as close as I would have done for myself but as it was I took off a fifth--the matter of five thousand dollars. When I came back, Mr. Corkery looked over my figures. "Sure you can do that?" he asked. I could see he was surprised. "Yes, sir," I said. "I'd hate like hell to get stuck," he said. "You won't get stuck," I answered. "It isn't the loss I mind," he said, "but--well there is a firm or two that is waiting to give me the laugh." "They won't laugh," I said. He looked at me a moment and then called in a clerk. "Have those figures put in shape," he said, "and send in this bid."