“I am proud of you, my son,” he said simply.

“You ain’t the only one,” broke in Dunn, brusquely[Pg 7] brushing Mr. Hardy aside and catching Ben’s arm in his iron grip. “You come with me, boy.”

[Pg 7]

He was a resolute hustling piece of humanity, always doing things forcefully. With a rush he dragged Ben into and through the machine shop.

“Good boy!” spoke a machinist, patting Ben on the shoulder as he passed him.

“You did it grand, lad,” commended a second.

“Three cheers for Ben Hardy!” roared Tim Grogan, a jolly and independent apprentice.

The enthusiastic cheers, given with a will, died away as the foreman and Ben reached the office.

“Where’s Saxton?” demanded Dunn in his bluff off-handed way.

“He went outside the building,” explained the bookkeeper, who had suspended work and looked anxious and flustered. “Say, is the danger over?”

“Oh, maybe a few shingles shaken off the roof. I reckon Saxton went outside to see how many,” retorted the foreman sarcastically. “Here he comes.”

The portly proprietor of the works at that moment came strutting through the front doorway. He was very consequential, now that the peril was past.

“Here Mr. Saxton,” spoke the foreman, “—you know this boy?”

“It’s Hardy’s lad, isn’t it?” replied Jasper Saxton, with a stare at Ben.

“Yes. He’s saved your shop from rattling to pieces, that’s all,” announced the foreman bluntly.[Pg 8] “That pet of yours, Tom Shallock, was in liquor and asleep at his post. If Ben here hadn’t got in action there’d have been a long shut-down of the Saxton Automobile Works, I can tell you, and maybe some funerals.”

[Pg 8]

Saxton looked annoyed and angry at the reference to the engineer, and slightly bored at the determined way in which his foreman kept pushing Ben to the front. All this embarrassed the latter, who tried to wriggle free from the grasp of the foreman.

“Where is Shallock?” asked Mr. Saxton uneasily.

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