Upon the dividends of the company many families in Mailsburg depended for their very daily bread. Had the dividends been reduced or even passed for several successive quarters, the Fullers would have got along all right; but there were stockholders whose livelihood depended utterly upon the factory running on full time and turning a profit on every dollar’s worth of product that left the shipping room. And Frank Barton seemed to be the only man to keep it so running. For the most part these needy folk were widows or orphans or old people past working age, who had received their stock from one or another of the original owners of the factory. These helpless people Barton had felt particularly his charge. To throw up his job and join the colors might ruin the small fry depending upon the success of the Hapwood-Diller Company’s affairs. Until of late he had scarcely found breathing space to think of anything save the business of the factory. But now! The boys marching away earlier in the day had stabbed Frank Barton to the quick. He was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve. It was only those who knew him best who suspected the rankling wound he suffered when his course was unfavorably compared with that of the guardsmen whose brother-in-arms he had been. Even Helen Fuller had accused him of being a slacker, and had compared him with Morry Copley and that Bradley fellow. Barton’s gorge rose as he thought of this. “A slacker, eh?” he muttered to himself. “A slacker, am I?” CHAPTER IV THE SKINNERS Jim Mayberry was smoking his second cigarette when a girl came out of the main door of the factory offices. She was a slim, rather startled looking girl. Her flaxen hair was pulled back so tightly as to raise her eyebrows perceptibly; this opened very wide her eyes and seemed even to pull the point of her nose up a little and raise her upper lip to display two little rabbit teeth. “Hello, Skinner,” said the superintendent. “Isn’t Ethel ’most ready?” “Hello, Jim Mayberry,” responded the girl, who felt no obligation to show the superintendent any particular respect outside the factory. “Going to take me home in your flivver?” “Aren’t you afraid to ride with me?” asked the man with a slow smile. “Nope. You try to get funny with _me_ and I’ll scratch your eyes out.” “My!” drawled Mayberry, “aren’t you the catty thing?” “You’d think so,” rejoined the flat-chested girl with all the strutting boastfulness of a boy. “No feller’s ever going to kiss _me_ if I don’t want him to.” “I bet you!” agreed the superintendent with mock admiration. “But where’s Ethel?” “You aren’t waiting for her, are you, Jim?” the slim girl asked, giggling. “I thought I was.” “Then there’s another thought coming to you,” declared the delighted Skinner. “Ethel went long ago--out through the side gate. Guess she must have suspected you’d be waiting here.”