Barry and I passed on through a communicating door to another room of about equal size and of equal light and airiness with the last. The temperate air was pungent with the smell of varnish and new paint. It passed with a pleasant sense of stinging freshness down into our lungs. We had reached our destination; for large sections of the room were closely stacked with tongues of various sizes, all standing on end in an ingenious system of grooves on the floor and ceiling. Some were newly come from the turning-mill; others had been painted, and now awaited varnishing; some had passed both of these processes, and were ready for the stripers; while in one corner stood those which had been painted and varnished and striped, and which were dry and ready to be taken to the platform, where Crist had ordered Barry and me to stack them. [Illustration: IN THE FACTORY.] Barry soon taught me how to load them properly, and, having filled the truck, we descended by an elevator to the ground-floor and passed out again into the bracing air of the open platforms, where we carefully stacked the tongues under the eaves, convenient to the loading of the cars. Round after round we made, going always and returning by the same course, loading the truck and stacking the tongues as quickly as we could. The work was not hard. There was a knack in the proper handling of the tongues, but it was readily acquired, and then one could settle down easily to the routine of work, whose monotony was broken by the recurring trips. One incident checked us in the way. It was our happening to meet the timekeeper on his rounds. Barry dropped everything until he had made assurance doubly sure that his presence had been duly noted in the book. Seeing that I was a new hand the timekeeper quickly took my name, and then passed on with a parting word of caution to me about the proper record of my time. Barry was evidently in high enjoyment of the situation. The work suited him, and the directing of a novice was hugely to his taste. There was little stay in the even current of his talk. I began to feel not unlike a “new boy” at school, for, with the air of a mentor, he pointed out to me all the sections of the factory, and the different occupations of the men, and the individual foremen as we chanced to see them. Once, as we were busily stacking tongues, his voice fell suddenly to a confidential tone, and his task was plied with tenser energy. “Do you see that man talking to Crist?” he said to me, almost in a whisper, and with his eyes intent upon his work. I had noticed someone who seemed to be a member of the managing staff.