These days Ethel was almost vexed with Benway Chase because he continued to be so enthusiastic about his work and interested in it. He never seemed to flag in his tasks; and he might really be, as he had laughingly said, fitting himself for Jim Mayberry’s position. He spent most of his noon hour talking with the foremen of the different shops. He learned much about the practical working of the factory system; yet he never neglected his own particular tasks. Mabel Skinner still considered Benway the most wonderful young man who had ever crossed her path; but she worshiped from afar. She did not dream of preening her poor plumage to attract his notice; yet when he smiled at her in good comradeship Little Skinner was secretly in ecstasies. “Gee!” she confided to Boots, her errant brother, on one occasion, “when Mr. Chase asked me did I like flowers, an’ give me some of them late asters from his mother’s garden, I almost swallowed my gum!” “Cracky!” scoffed Boots. “That poor fish? Why, he ain’t got but one good wing!” “An’ he can put over a spitter with that that _you_ can’t hit, Smartie,” retorted his sister vigorously. “And he’s a gentleman, Mr. Chase is!” “Cracky!” repeated Boots. “Seems to me, if I was a girl I’d fall for a feller that could gimme something besides a flower an’ a sweet smile. Like that Jim Mayberry. He’s got a flivver and could take you ridin’.” “He only took me once,” said Mabel complacently. “And I guess he must have give you a ride in his buzz-cart, too, that time, or you wouldn’t have give me that dream about Jim and Sam Blaisdell of Norville workin’ in cahoots against Mr. Barton.” “Huh! That warn’t no dream,” grumbled Boots. “You think you’re allus so smart, Mab Skinner. I heard ’em talkin’ all right ’bout how to do Mr. Barton. And it had something to do with the Bogata works down to Norville, just as I told you.” “Well, that egg never hatched, then,” declared his dubious sister. They might have suspected the incubation of another egg had she known how often Jim Mayberry was in consultation with Mr. Grandon Fuller these days at the Bellevue, although Mabel Skinner of course knew little about the inside affairs of the Hapwood-Diller Company. It might have aroused any person’s suspicions to mark the superintendent’s intimacy with the largest stockholder of the concern. Mr. Fuller had not again suggested the removal of Barton and the appointment of Mayberry as manager. Indeed, with the former already out of the country and in the Service, that change did not seem necessary to the carrying to conclusion of any schemes Mr. Fuller might have.