idn't say anything. For two months I took each time the men I had and
did my best with them. I had my reward in finding myself placed at the
head of a constantly increasing force. I also found that I was being
sent on all the hurry-up work. I learned something every day. Finally
when the time seemed ripe I went to the contractor's agent with the
proposition towards which I had all along been working. This was that
I should be allowed to hire my own men.

The agent was skeptical at first about the wisdom of entrusting such
power as this to a subordinate but I put my case to him squarely. I
said in brief that I was sure I could pick a gang of fifty men who
would do the work of seventy-five. I told him that for a year now I
had been making notes on the best workers and I thought I could secure
them. But I would have to do it myself. It would be only through my
personal influence with them that they could be got. He raised several
objections but I finally said:

"Let me try it anyhow. The men won't cost you any more than the others
and if I don't make good it's easy enough to go back to the old way."

It's queer how stubbornly business men cling to routine. They get
stuck in a system and hate to change. He finally gave me permission to
see the men. I was then to turn them over to the regular paymaster who
would engage them. This was all I wanted and with my note book I
started out.

It was no easy job for me and for a week I had to cut out my night
school and give all my time to it. Many of the men had moved and
others had gone into other work but I kept at it night after night
trotting from one end of the city to the other until I rounded up
about thirty of them. This seemed to me enough to form a core. I could
pick up others from time to time as I found them. The men remembered
me and when I told them something of my plan they all agreed with a
grin to report for work as soon as they were free. And this was how
Carleton's gang happened to be formed.

It took me about three months to put all my fifty men into good
working order and it wasn't for a year that I had my machine where I
wanted it. But it was a success from the start. At the end of a year I
learned that even the contractor himself began to speak with some
pride of Carleton's gang. And he used it. He used it hard. In fact he
made something of a special feature of it. It began to bring him
emergency business. Wherever speed was a big essential, he secured the