m to a corner of the mill where some fine counter work was
in process.

"That's my work," he said, pointing to a piece of oak railing.

Maitland, turning the work over in his hands, ran his finger along a
joint somewhat clumsily fitted.

"Not that," said McNish hastily. "Ma work stops here."

Again Maitland examined the rail. His experienced eye detected easily
the difference in the workmanship.

"Is there anything else of yours about here?" he asked. McNish went to
a pile of finished work and from it selected a small swing door
beautifully panelled. Maitland's eye gleamed.

"Ah, that's better," he said. "Yes, that's better."

He turned to one of the workmen at the bench near by.

"What job is this, Gibbon?" he asked.

"It's the Bank job, I think," said Gibbon.

"What? The Merchants' Bank job? Surely that can't be. That job was
due two weeks ago." Maitland turned impatiently toward an older man.
"Ellis," he said sharply, "do you know what job this is?"

Ellis came and turned over the different parts of the work.

"That's the Merchants' Bank job, sir," he said.

"Then what is holding this up?" enquired Maitland wrathfully.

"It's the turned work, I think, sir. I am not sure, but I think I heard
Mr. Perrotte asking about that two or three days ago." Mr. Maitland's
lips met in a thin straight line.

"You can go back to your saw, McNish," he said shortly.

"Ay, sir," said McNish, his tone indicating quiet satisfaction. At
Gibbon's bench he paused. "Ye'll no pit onything past him, a doot," he
said, with a grim smile, and passed out.

In every part of the shop Mr. Maitland found similar examples of
mismanagement and lack of co-ordination in the various departments of
the work. It needed no more than a cursory inspection to convince him
that a change of foreman was a simple necessity. Everywhere he found not
only evidence of waste of time but also of waste of material. It cut him
to the heart to see beautiful wood mangled and ruined. All his life he
had worked with woods of different kinds. He knew them standing in all
their matchless grandeur, in the primeval forest and had followed them
step by step all the way to the finished product. Never without a heart
pang did he witness a noble white pine, God's handiwork of centuries,
come crashing to earth through the meaner growth beneath the chopper's
axe. The only thing that redeemed such a deed from sacrilege, in his
mind, was to see the tree fittingly transf