“How’s your Bolshevist coming on, Tom?” asked Ned one day. “Oh, Barsky? Why, he seems to be doing very well, so Jackson tells me,” was the answer. “He minds his own business and he’s a regular wizard at pattern making. He hasn’t had a chance to show what sort of a machinist he is, but I reckon he’ll do. In fact, Jackson says, in spite of his rather terrorizing appearance, that the man is a find.” “Glad of it,” replied the young manager. “It’s always a sort of satisfaction to find you’ve misjudged a man on the right side. Now in regard to this order from the Simplex Supply Company, if we ship them a hundred gross of those dashers that ought to keep them supplied for a month, and we can then use the machinery to turn out those candy-wrapping machines for the Cocoa Company.” “All right, Ned, I’ll leave that to you. I’ve got troubles of my own here. Hello, that can’t be the noon whistle, can it?” cried Tom, as a blast smote the air. He looked up at the clock on the wall, noting it was barely eleven, and then Ned, after a glance from the window, cried: “It’s the fire alarm, Tom! There’s a blaze in the pattern shop!” A moment later several voices took up the shouts of: “Fire! Fire! Fire!” CHAPTER VII A HURRIED EXIT WHILE a fire is always a dangerous and alarming matter in a big shop or a factory, that contingency has been thought of and plans made to meet the emergency. It was this way in the shops of the Swift Construction Company. They had organized a fire-fighting force, and in each shop there was a reel of hose in addition to several chemical extinguishers, the result of Tom’s own inventive genius. Besides this, a series of whistle alarms had been worked out; a certain number of blasts on the big steam siren giving the location of the blaze. And it was the booming out of this whistle that now sent out the alarm. “Come on, Ned!” Tom cried. Mr. Newton, dropping his books, ran with the young men. “It’s in the pattern shop, all right!” cried Tom as he sped along. “I hope it doesn’t get to those new models Barsky has been working on for my train-stopping device. He’s got some of my original drawings out there.” Every one connected with the Swift enterprises knew the menace of fire, and when that whistle blew every man and boy dropped what he was doing and rushed to the location of the blaze. Eradicate was driving an old horse hitched to a cultivator in the garden, and when he heard the whistle the old colored man slapped the reins down on his animal’s back and shouted: “G’lang! Git a move on! We’s got to help put out dat fiah!”