h.
"Well--maybe I can do something--maybe--we'll see." And then she left
him and he went to his work. And as he worked the thought struck him
suddenly that if he could put one of his sprockets in the Judge's
automobile where he had seen a chain, that it would save power and stop
much of the noise. So as he worked he dreamed that his sprocket was
adopted by the makers of the new machines, and that he was
rich--exceedingly rich and that he took the girls to visit the Ohio kin,
and that Emma had her trip to the Grand Canyon, that Martha went to
Europe and that Ruthie "took vocal" of a teacher in France whose name he
could not pronounce.

As he hammered away at his bench he heard a shuffling at the door and
looking up saw Dr. Nesbit in the threshold.

"Come in, Doctor; sit down and talk," shrilled the Doctor before the
Captain could speak, and when the Doctor had seated himself upon the box
by the workbench, the Captain managed to say: "Surely--come right in,
I'm kind of lonesome anyhow."

"And I'm mad," cried the Doctor. "Just let me sit here and blow off a
little to my old army friend."

"Well--well, Doctor, it's queer to see you hot under the collar--eh?"
The Doctor began digging out his pipe and filling it, without speaking.
The Captain asked: "What's gone wrong? Politics ain't biling? what say?"

"Well," returned the Doctor, "you know Laura works at her kindergarten
down there in South Harvey, and she got me to pass that hours-of-service
law for the smelter men at the extra session last summer. Good law!
Those men working there in the fumes shouldn't work over six hours a
day--it will kill them. I managed by trading off my hide and my chances
of Heaven to get a law through, cutting them down to eight hours in
smelter work. Denny Hogan, who works on the slag dump, is going to die
if he has to do it another year on a ten-hour shift. He's been up and
down for two years now--the Hogans live neighbors to Laura's school and
I've been watching him. Well," and here the Doctor thumped on the floor
with his cane, "this Judge--this vain, strutting peacock of a Judge,
this cat-chasing Judge that was once my son-in-law, has gone and knocked
the law galley west so far as it affects the slag dump. I've just been
reading his decision, and I'm hot--good and hot."

The Captain interrupted:

"I saw Violet Hogan and the children--dressed like princesses, walking
out to-day--past the Judge's house--showing it to them--what say? My,