CHAPTER II
JUST IN TIME
“Thank you,” said Ben.
“Don’t mention it,” responded Jasper Saxton.
The manufacturer turned from Ben with a decided expression of relief on his face. He acted like a man who had got off cheaply.
It was in Ben’s mind to ask Mr. Saxton if he “was to keep all of the twenty-five cents,” but sarcasm was not Ben’s forte. He was too ingenious to cherish resentment against either friend or enemy. Ben simply pocketed the coin. He concealed a smile of comicality. The situation, displaying Jasper Saxton’s usual meanness, rather tickled him.
He was about to turn and leave the office when an extraordinary movement on the part of Saxton enchained his attention. The latter with something between a growl and a yell had described an active jump. He landed up against a parcel bench on which lay a variety of small machine parts, bagged and ready for shipment.
“What! hasn’t that gone yet?” he shouted, his hand closing over a small steel section of some machine weighing about ten pounds.
“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed the bookkeeper, “I was just going to wrap that up and send it when the shop began to shake. I’ll attend to it immediately, sir.”
“Immediately!” howled Saxton, as the bookkeeper fumbled over twine and wrapping paper—“why, it’s special. Do you understand that? The man it is for is expecting it at the depot. He is to leave on the five o’clock train, and it’s—seven minutes of five now!” yelled the manufacturer, glancing at his watch. “Here, wrap it quick, and send the office boy kiting with it fast as you can.”
“Dan has gone for the mail, sir,” said the office man.
“Then hustle with it yourself,” ordered Saxton.
“You forget that I am lame,” submitted the bookkeeper reproachfully.
“It’s got to go,” stormed the manufacturer. “Hold on, there.”
He shouted these last words at Ben just as the latter was about to leave the office.
“Yes, sir!” said Ben inquiringly.
“I’ve paid you that money, you know—you’ll do a little extra job, hey?”
“With pleasure,” answered Ben, with his usual bright accommodating smile.
“That’s a good boy,” said Mr. Saxton. “Hustle, now,” to his bookkeeper.
Ben stood awaiting the package from the nervous fingers of the office employee. He was more amused than disappointed in the narrow view Mr. Saxton took of things in general. The quarter of a dollar and the “extra job,” as he designated it, were characteristic of the tight-fisted manufacturer. His treatment of Ben had been of a piece awarded Mr. Hardy, and Ben was not much surprised.
The Saxton Automobile Works was doing a large and growing business, but it was not his own business ability, as the self-centered manufacturer imagined, that had brought about all this progress and prosperity. Mr. Hardy had designed the Estrelle auto. The Saxton Company never gave him credit for this. Ben’s father was more of an inventor than a business man, and he had never protected himself as a shrewder man might have done.
He was a valuable workman in the Saxton service and received very good pay. Ben, however, had always thought that his father should have been given more credit and money that he really got.
Ben’s mother had often talked to her husband about this. Finally Mr. Hardy had gone to Mr. Saxton and had put the case before him. Nearly all the new and popular points about the Estrelle machine were inventions of Mr. Hardy. Jasper Saxton did not deny this, but he proposed that the patents be taken out in his own name. In an indefinite way he agreed to make some kind of an equitable settlement with his employer as soon as the rush season was over. Mr. Hardy asked for a memorandum of the agreement.
To this Mr. Saxton reluctantly consented after a great deal of delay. Mr. Hardy placed the precious document in his coat pocket. When he went back to work he hung up his coat in its usual place. When he got home that night the written agreement was missing.
An unavailing search was made for the document. Then in a day or two Mr. Hardy went back to his employer and related the circumstances, asking for a new copy of the agreement.
Mr. Saxton put him off on the pretext of being very busy. Then, when urged by Mrs. Hardy and Ben, the head machinist again approached Jasper Saxton, the latter told him that if he would wait till the active selling season was over and he could get at his books, they would go together to a lawyer and have a contract drawn up in due legal form.
Mr. Hardy was easily satisfied and rested content with this promise. His heart was in his work. When Ben intimated that he was dealing with a man with a general reputation for business slipperiness, his father told him that it would come out all right. He was sanguine that Mr. Saxton would do the liberal thing by him as soon as the selling season was over.
“Here you are,” said the bookkeeper, at last completing the packing of the steel fittings.
“Where am I to deliver it?” inquired Ben, accepting the parcel.
“Name’s on the bag,” explained Jasper Saxton hurriedly.
Ben glanced at the bag and read the name: “John R. Davis.”
“All right,” he said. “Will he be at the depot?”
“He is leaving for Blairville on the five o’clock train,” said Jasper Saxton. “You’ll know him when you see him—large, tall man with a full beard, and wears gold eye glasses.”
“I will find him if he’s there,” said Ben confidently.
“Don’t delay, boy,” broke in the manufacturer, “you’ve got barely five minutes.”
Ben placed the parcel under his arm and passed from the office. He made a bee-line for the front door, to be interrupted by a shout.
“Hey there, Hardy!”
“I’m in a desperate hurry, Mr. Dunn,” said Ben, recognizing his challenger.
“Never mind—only a moment.” The big foreman got to Ben’s side and gripped his arm. “What did he give you?” he demanded.
“It isn’t fair to tell,” declared Ben, with an evasive smile.
“You’ll tell me,” firmly insisted the foreman.
“Well then—twenty-five.”
“H’m! He gave the night watchman only ten dollars when he saved the shop from burning down. Twenty-five dollars? That’s pretty fair—for Saxton.”
“Don’t delay me, Mr. Dunn,” again pleaded Ben, tugging to get loose.
“Just one more question,” said the foreman.
“Be quick, then.”
“Which do you like best—open face or hunting case watch?”
“Eh?” exclaimed Ben, with a start.
“They’ve started a little appreciation list back there. Come, which is it?”
“Oh, Mr. Dunn!”
“Decide, or we’ll buy you both,” declared Ben’s determined captor.
“Any boy would like an open faced watch,” said Ben.
“All right, you can go now,” said Dunn, with a chuckle.
Ben darted off on a sprint to make up for lost time. It was four blocks to the depot, and he had about three minutes to make it in. As he darted through the front doorway of the works Ben heard the first starting bell ringing out at the depot.
“I’ve got to hustle to make it!” he declared. “No, it can’t be done. I know what I’ll do—I’ll cut across the triangle.”
Ben figured that this short cut across a dumping yard would land him up to the train before it got going at full speed. His calculations, however, were somewhat at fault. As he neared the tracks the train came down the rails at a pretty good rate of speed.
Ben waited till the baggage car and one passenger coach had passed him. Then, hampered by his bundle, he gave it a fling and landed it on the platform of the second coach.
Poising for a spring and a catch, Ben made a grab for the railing of the last car.
Then he gripped firmly at its outer edge. With a wrench he was pulled from the ground, but clung sturdily, his feet flying out in the air like streamers.