much as it meant anything, so
he went in. Bannon, already in his shirt and trousers, stood with his back
to the door, his face in the washbowl. As he scoured he sputtered. Max
could make little out of it, for Bannon's face was under water half the
time, but he caught such phrases as "Pete's darned foolishness," "College
boy trick," "Lie abed all the morning," and "Better get an alarm clock"--
which thing and the need for it Bannon greatly despised--and he reached
the conclusion that the matter was nothing more serious than that Bannon
had overslept.

But the boss took it seriously enough. Indeed, he seemed deeply
humiliated, and he marched back to the elevator beside Max without saying
a word until just as they were crossing the Belt Line tracks, when the
explanation of the phenomenon came to him.

"I know where I get it from," he exclaimed, as if in some measure relieved
by the discovery. "I must take after my uncle. He was the greatest fellow
to sleep you ever saw."

So far as pace was concerned that day was like the others; while the men
were human it could be no faster; with Bannon on the job it could not
flag; but there was this difference, that today the stupidest sweepers
knew that they had almost reached the end, and there was a rally like that
which a runner makes at the beginning of the last hundred yards.

Late in the afternoon they had a broad hint of how near the end was. The
sweepers dropped their brooms and began carrying fire buckets full of
water. They placed one or more near every bearing all over the elevator.
The men who were quickest to understand explained to the slower ones what
the precaution meant, and every man had his eye on the nearest pulley to
see when it would begin to turn.

But Bannon was not going to begin till he was ready. He had inspected the
whole job four times since noon, but just after six he went all over it
again, more carefully than before. At the end he stepped out of the door
at the bottom of the stairway bin, and pulled it shut after him. It was
not yet painted, and its blank surface suggested something. He drew out
his blue pencil and wrote on the upper panel:--

O.K.
C. H. BANNON.

Then he walked over to the power house. It was a one-story brick building,
with whose construction Bannon had had no concern, as Page & Company had
placed the contract for it elsewhere. Every night for the past week lights
had been streaming from its windows, and day and night men had w