“Maybe,” agreed Con. “Who are you?”
“I’m the Assistant Works,” observed Professor Henry H. Bates.
“Oh!” said Mr. Ripley in some wonder, looking from the soft cap of Mr. Bates to the broad, thick tan shoes of Mr. Bates, and then back up to the wide-set eyes. “I hadn’t heard about it.”
“No?” responded Mr. Bates. “Well, I came in to tell you. I don’t know enough about electricity to say whether you feed it with a spoon or from a bottle, but I’m here, just the same, to notice that the juice slips through the wires all right to-night, all right.”
“The hell you are!” exclaimed Mr. Ripley, taking sudden umbrage at both tone and words, and also at the physical attitude of Mr. Bates, which had grown somewhat threatening. “All right, Mr. Works,” and Mr. Ripley began to step out of his overalls; “jump right in and push juice till you get black in the face, while I take a little vacation. I’ve been wanting a lay-off for a long time.”
“You’ll lay on, Bo,” dissented Mr. Bates. “Nix on the vacation. That’s just the point. You’re going to stick on the job, and I’m going to stick within four feet of you till old Jim-jams Jones shakes along to get his morning’s morning; and it will be a sign of awful bad luck for you if the lights in this end of town flicker a single flick any time to-night.”
“Is that it?” Mr. Ripley wanted to know. “And if they should happen to flicker some what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Biff. “I’ll knock your block off first and think about it afterward!”
Mr. Ripley hastily drew his overalls back on and slipped the straps over his shoulders with a snap.
“You’ll tell me when you’re going to do it, won’t you?” he asked banteringly, and, a full head taller than Mr. Bates, glared down at him a moment in contempt. Then he laughed. “I’ll give you ten to one the lights will flicker,” he offered to bet. “I wouldn’t stop such a cunning chance for exercise for real money,” and, whirling upon his heel, Mr. Ripley started upon his usual preliminary examination of dynamos and engines and boilers.