ed, and he brought me down in his car. That's
all there was to it."

"Mighty poor excuse," grunted Shade, turning his shoulder to her.

"It's not an excuse at all," said Johnnie. "You have no right to ask
excuses for what I do--or explanations, either, for that matter. I've
told you the truth about it because we were old friends and you named it
to me; but I'm sorry now that I spoke at all. Give me that drawing and
those patterns back. Some of the other loom-fixers can make what
I want."

"You get mad quick, don't you?" Buckheath asked, turning to her with a
half-taunting, half-relenting smile on his face. "Red-headed people
always do."

"No, I'm not mad," Johnnie told him, as she had told him long ago. "But
I'll thank you not to name Mr. Stoddard to me again. If I haven't the
right to speak to anybody I need to, why it certainly isn't your place
to tell me of it."

"Go 'long," said Buckheath, surlily; "I'll fix 'em for you." And without
another word the girl left him.

After Johnnie was gone, Buckheath chewed for some time the bitter cud of
chagrin. He was wholly mistaken, then, in the object of her visit to the
mechanical department? Yet he was a cool-headed fellow, always alert for
that which might bring him gain. Pushing, aspiring, he subscribed for
and faithfully studied a mechanics' journal which continually urged upon
its readers the profit of patenting small improvements on machinery
already in use. Indeed everybody, these days, in the factories, is on
the lookout for patentable improvements. Why might not Johnnie have
stumbled on to something worth while? That Passmore and Consadine tribe
were all smart fools. He made the slotted strips she wanted, and
delivered them to her the next day with civil words. When, after she had
them in use on the spinning jennies upstairs for a week, she came down
bringing them for certain minute alterations, his attitude was one of
friendly helpfulness.

"You say you use 'em on the frames? What for? How do they work?" he
asked her, examining the little contrivance lingeringly.

"They're working pretty well," she told him, "even the way they are--a
good deal too long, and with that slot not cut deep enough, I'm right
proud of myself when I look at them. Any boy or girl tending a frame can
go to the end of it and see if anything's the matter without walking
plumb down. When you get them fixed the way I want them, I tell you
they'll be fine."

The next afternoon saw Shade