Will Matthews could, and so could Homer Dean. Also they recommended themselves to Jasper in other ways. The head of the Hopkins Tool Company had breathed the dust from his own emery wheels in the past; he was of a gritty and abrading disposition. His nerves were tight, his temper was loose; and to arouse him meant an explosion that resembled nothing so much as the commotion which results when the mainspring of an ancient alarm clock, in process of dissection, is injudiciously set free. His prejudices were tradition. While Will and Homer were still in the shipping room they heard how he had scorched Charlie Dunn with many words over the mere slamming of a door. And how he had reduced Luther Worthing from salesman to bookkeeper again because Luther faced him one morning with waistcoat half unbuttoned. And how he had summarily discharged Jim Porter for carelessly rumpling the corner of the office rug. Noise he hated, neatness and order he demanded and revered; and more than one office boy had lost his job for scanting his daily task of putting a fresh and spotless blotter on the broad pad upon Old Jasper’s desk. These likes and dislikes Homer and Will respected; to a legitimate extent they catered to them; and thus they attained a certain eminence in their employer’s eyes. He had been known to refer to them as promising young men. They knew this as well as others did, and there was a good-natured rivalry between them to see which should distance the other on the upward way. III This was not the only rivalry between the two young men. Her name was Annie Cool, and she was some four years younger than either. They became aware of her the year after her graduation from high school, when she let down her skirts and put up her prettily luxuriant hair and ceased to be “that Cool kid” in their eyes. There is a wide gulf between twelve and sixteen; there is even a gulf between sixteen and twenty. But when the signs are right, there is no gulf at all between, say, eighteen and twenty-two. Annie was eighteen and they were twenty-two. Presently she was nineteen and they were twenty-three, and a little after that she was twenty and they were twenty-four. By this time each of the young men was conscious of much more than a pleasantly intense delight in Annie Cool’s companionship. Will Matthews was always somewhat more mature than Homer Dean; he took Annie more seriously. He wooed her gently, with kindliness and much persistence; and Homer wooed her laughingly, with raillery and the rough teasing that goes with youth. There were times when she liked to be with Will; there were other times when she liked to be with Homer, but most of the time she liked to be with both of them, and said so. Other young men of the community knew the uselessness of intrusion on their intimacy.