“Now look here, you and I have played together since we were kids. This is my big night and it won’t be worth a damn if you aren’t there. Forget your infernal motors for a couple of hours and be a regular fellow again.... I’m asking it as a favor.”
“Well,” said Potter, after a pause, “I’ll drop in for a while to watch the menagerie, but don’t count on my yowling with the rest of the animals.”
“You can be a keeper with a steel prod.”
“O’Mera be there? I hear he’s going to fly.”
“Goes to the ground school next week.... We’ll miss Kraemer and Randall. Kraemer’s here with a brand-new uniform and a commission, but lips that touch liquor can’t touch his’n while he wears it.”
“All right. I’ll show up.”
Potter hung up the receiver and arose from his desk to walk out into the shop. His office was not where it had been, in the administration wing, but occupied a corner of the shop itself. He had kept his promise to the men, and worked side by side with them, surrounded by shafting and belts, by lathes and planers and shapers, and the scraping, clanking, grinding roar of machines that turned out daily more and more work for the government. He glanced about him and was proud. Everywhere were units of motors, parts in all degrees of completion. At last production had commenced on such a scale as he had dreamed of, and now only weeks must elapse before he was turning over to the government a steady flow of motors that would continue day in and day out so long as the war demanded them. It was accomplishment.
From the day he had spoken to the men from the platform of a gray-painted army truck the work had seemed to leap ahead. The men had put in as their share something more than mere wage-earning labor. They had added to it enthusiasm. The spirit with which they worked day after day was splendid, and Potter made it no small part of his duty to see that it did not die out.
There were still annoyances, delays, petty mishaps. The campaign of sabotage had not ceased, but it had been checked, for Potter had now to depend upon an army of watchful, eager eyes, the eyes of every honest working-man, and not the few guardians set by the Signal Corps.... But Potter was not satisfied nor at rest. His foreboding grew as his efforts to lay hands upon the source of the trouble proved futile. He believed something was in preparation, that some blasting catastrophe was being planned and made ready ... which he seemed helpless to avert.
Like all his other days, this one passed too quickly. There were many times when he would have wished to be a Joshua. The machinery went to rest, the army of men filed out noisily, and Potter closed his door for the night. He drove home through the coolly pleasant December air and dressed. At seven o’clock he entered the lobby of the Tuller, where La Mothe stepped forward to greet him.