contract through my gang. He used us altogether for foundation work
and his business increased so rapidly that we were never idle. I
became proud of my men and my reputation.

But of course this success--this proof that my idea was a good
one--only whetted my appetite for the big goal still ahead of me. I
was eager for the day when this group of men should really be
Carleton's gang. It was hard in a way to see the result of my own
thought and work turning out big profits for another when all I needed
was a little capital to make it my own. Still I knew I must be
patient. There were many things yet that I must learn before I should
be competent to undertake contracts for myself. In the meanwhile I
could satisfy my ambition by constantly strengthening and perfecting
the machine.

Then, too, I found that the gang was bringing me into closer touch
with my superiors. One day I was called to the office of the firm and
there I met the two men who until now had been nothing to me but two
names. For a year I had stared at these names painted in black on
white boards and posted about the grounds of every job upon which I
had worked. I had never thought of them as human beings so much as
some hidden force--like the unseen dynamo of a power plant. They were
both Irish-Americans--strong, prosperous-looking men. Somehow they
made me distinctly conscious of my own ancestry. I don't mean that I
was over-proud--in a way I don't suppose there was anything to boast
of in the Carletons--but as I stood before these men in the position
of a minor employee I suppose that unconsciously I looked for
something in my past to offset my present humiliating situation. And
from a business point of view, it was humiliating. The Carletons had
been in this country two hundred years and these men but twenty-five
or thirty and yet I was the man who stood while they faced me in their
easy chairs before their roll-top desks. It was then that I was glad
to remember there hadn't been a war in this country in which a
Carleton had not played his part. I held myself a little better for
the thought.

They were unaffected and business-like but when they spoke it was
plain "Carleton" and when I spoke it was "Mr. Corkery," or "Mr.
Galvin." That was right and proper enough.

They had called me in to consult with me on a big job which they were
trying to figure down to the very lowest point. They were willing to
get out of it with the smallest possible margin o