Jack." For the first time in his life Grant
Maitland was at a loss as to how he should handle one of his men. Were
it not for the letter in the desk at his hand he would have made short
work of Tony Perrotte. But there the letter lay and in his heart the
inerasible picture it set forth.

"What is the special form that Tony's devilment has taken, may I ask?"
enquired Jack.

"Well, I may say to you, what Wickes knows and has known and has tried
for three months to hide from me and from himself, Tony has made about
as complete a mess of the organization under his care in the planing
mill as can be imagined. The mill is strewn with the wreckage of
unfulfilled orders. He has no sense of time value. To-morrow is as good
as to-day, next week as this week. A foreman without a sense of time
value is no good. And he does not value material. Waste to him is
nothing. Another fatal defect. The man to whom minutes are not potential
gold and material potential product can never hope to be a manufacturer.
If only I had not been away from home! But the thing is, what is to be
done?"

"In the words of a famous statesman much abused indeed, I suggest, 'Wait
and see.' Meantime, find some way of kicking him into his job."

This proved to be in the present situation a policy of wisdom. It was
Tony himself who furnished the solution. From the men supposed to be
working under his orders he learned the day following Maitland's visit
of inspection something of the details of that visit. He quickly made
up his mind that the day of reckoning could not long be postponed. None
knew better than Tony himself that he was no foreman; none so well that
he loathed the job which had been thrust upon him by the father of
the man whom he had carried out from the very mouth of hell. It was
something to his credit that he loathed himself for accepting the
position. Yet, with irresponsible procrastination, he put off the day of
reckoning. But, some ten days later, and after a night with some kindred
spirits of his own Battalion, a night prolonged into the early hours of
the working day, Tony presented himself at the office, gay, reckless,
desperate, but quite compos mentis and quite master of his means of
locomotion.

He appeared in the outer office, still in his evening garb.

"Mr. Wickes," he said in solemn gravity, "please have your stenographer
take this letter."

Mr. Wickes, aghast, strove to hush his vibrant tones, indicating in
excited pantomime