"Kinnison speaking ... yes ... Dr. Sumner? Oh, yes, Chief Chemist.... That's it--one year over age, so I thought.... Oh, that's a minor matter. We won't starve. If you can't pay a hundred and fifty I'll come for a hundred, or seventy five, or fifty.... That's all right, too. I'm well enough known in my own field so that a title of Junior Chemical Engineer wouldn't hurt me a bit ... O.K., I'll see you about one o'clock ... Stoner and Black, Inc., Operators, Entwhistle Ordnance Plant, Entwhistle, Missikota.... What! Well, maybe I could, at that.... Goodbye." He turned to his wife. "You know what? They want me to come down right away and go to work. Hot Dog! _Am_ I glad that I told that louse Hendricks exactly where he could stick that job of mine!" "He must have known that you wouldn't sign a straight-salary contract after getting a share of the profits so long. Maybe he believed what you always say just before or just after kicking somebody's teeth down their throats; that you're so meek and mild--a regular Milquetoast. Do you really think that they'll want you back, after the war?" It was clear that Eunice was somewhat concerned concerning Kinnison's joblessness; but Kinnison was not. "Probably. That's the gossip. And I'll come back--when hell freezes over." His square jaw tightened. "I've heard of outfits stupid enough to let their technical brains go because they could sell--for a while--anything they produced, but I didn't know that I was working for one. Maybe I'm not exactly a Timid Soul, but you'll have to admit that I never kicked anybody's teeth out unless they tried to kick mine out first." * * * * * Entwhistle Ordnance Plant covered twenty-odd square miles of more or less level land. Ninety-nine percent of its area was "Inside the fence." Most of the buildings within that restricted area, while in reality enormous, were dwarfed by the vast spaces separating them; for safety-distances are not small when TNT and tetryl by the ton are involved. Those structures were built of concrete, steel, glass, transite, and tile. "Outside the Fence" was different. This was the Administration Area. Its buildings were tremendous wooden barracks, relatively close together, packed with the executive, clerical, and professional personnel appropriate to an organization employing over twenty thousand men and women. Well inside the fence, but a safety-distance short of the One Line--Loading Line Number One--was a long, low building, quite inadequately named the Chemical Laboratory. "Inadequately" in that the Chief Chemist, a highly capable--if more than a little cantankerous--Explosives Engineer, had already gathered into his Chemical Section most of Development, most of Engineering, and all of Physics, Weights and Measures, and Weather.