he clerks were all deferential, and those of foreign birth
obsequious, Bullen had an air that was more than sturdily
independent--the air and the eye of the skilled mechanic. On his own
ground he was master, and Justin, with a smile, deferred to him. But
Justin broke into Bullen's calculations abruptly, after a while, to
ask:

"What's that you've got there? It looks like one of those bars that
nearly smashed us."

"You've got a good eye, sir," said Bullen approvingly. "A year and a
half ago you'd not have seen any difference between one bit of steel
and another. But there's one thing I didn't see about it myself until
Venly--he's a new man we've taken on--pointed it out to me. He came
across a case of these to-day we'd thrown out in the waste-heap. We
thought our machine had jarred them out of shape, because they were a
fraction off size; well, so they were. But Venly he spotted them in a
minute, when he was out there, and he asked me if they weren't from
the Beuschoten factory--he was turned off from there last week;
they're cutting down the force; they always do, come spring. He said
they looked like part of a bum lot that had flaws in them. He got the
magnifying-glass and showed me, and, sure enough, 'twas right he was!
He says they've got piles of them they've been workin' off on the
trade at a cut price. Venly he said he didn't have any stomach for a
skin game like that."

"That's a pretty ruinous way to do business, isn't it?" asked Justin.

"Oh, they're going to sell out in July, so they don't care. I pity any
one that's counting on any sort of machine that's got these in 'em.
Would you take the glass and look for yourself, sir? Every one of 'em
is flawed!"

TO BE CONTINUED

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1,
May 1908, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE, VOL. 31 ***

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