If that contract was filled and was not paid for, a ruinous deficit in supplies and labor cost would face the factory at the end of the fiscal year. And in addition the general manager had assured her he figured overtime work or an increase of help in the shops as positively detrimental. This order for stock and factory supplies was supposed to go out at once. It was nearly time for John Murphy to make his last trip for the day to the post-office. There was absolutely nothing to hold the order back, and Mayberry, she knew, would take offence if the matter was retarded. It was true that five days must be wasted if Mr. Barton was communicated with by mail. And that joker in the Bogata Company’s letter seemed to be a barrier to any attempt to get out of fulfilling the contract at this late day. Would it do any good to disturb Barton about the matter at all now? If she could only see him! If she could discuss the point with him--tell him of her suspicions and fears. At least, some of her suspicions. Ethel scarcely admitted to herself that she positively identified the person guilty of juggling the letters and the Bogata order sheets. Merely she felt certain that Frank Barton knew nothing about it. He should know. He must know before more harm was done. The order for supplies was before her. She reached across the desk for the envelope in which to enclose it and her stiff linen cuff caught in the filigree work of the inkstand the office staff had presented to her. It tottered. In another moment the catastrophe had occurred--a deluge of blue fluid rolled across the desk and the papers on it. Ethel sprang up to escape the drip from the top of the desk. “Man overboard!” ejaculated Benway Chase, starting for the lavatory for a towel with which to mop up the ink. Little Skinner held the blotted order sheets gingerly by their corners, to drip over Ethel’s wastebasket. “Gee!” she said, hoarsely, “all them papers!” “Those papers, Mabel,” admonished Ethel involuntarily. For Mabel Skinner was like an actor afflicted with stammering in his natural character; when once in his part and on the stage he never stutters. So Mabel, nimble of wit, who was studying stenography at a night school, hoping to work up to a better position with the Hapwood-Diller Company, could take the small amount of dictation that fell to her reasonably well and could transcribe it into fair English: but she usually talked like a street gamin. “They will have to be recopied, Mabel,” Ethel said quietly. “Josephine has her hands full; will you do it for me?” “Sure,” agreed Miss Skinner, shifting her gum. Then she cocked an apprehensive eye at the clock. “I--I got a date to-night, Miss Clayton; but I can go without supper----” “I don’t wish you to finish it to-night, Mabel. Let me have it completed sometime to-morrow forenoon.” “I’m on,” said the girl, and bore away the streaked and blotted papers to her machine.