Fuller arrived, and after spending a few days at the works came to Dick’s shack one evening. For an hour he examined drawings and calculations, asking Jake a sharp question now and then, and afterwards sent him away.
“You can put up the papers now,” he said. “We’ll go out on the veranda. It’s cooler there.”
He dropped into a canvas chair, for the air was stagnant and enervating, and looked down at the clustering lights beside the sea for a time. Then he said abruptly: “Jake seems to know his business. You have taught him well.”
“He learned most himself,” Dick answered modestly.
“Well,” said Fuller with some dryness, “that’s the best plan, but you put him on the right track and kept him there; I guess I know my son. Has he made trouble for you in other ways?”
“None worth mentioning.”
Fuller gave him a keen glance and then indicated the lights of the town.
“That’s the danger-spot. Does he go down there often?”
“No. I make it as difficult as possible, but can’t stop him altogether.”
Fuller nodded. “I guess you used some tact, because he likes you and you’d certainly have had trouble if you’d snubbed him up too hard. Anyway, I’m glad to acknowledge that you have put me in your debt. You can see how I was fixed. Bethune’s not the man to guide a headstrong lad, and Stuyvesant’s his boss. If he’d used any official pressure, Jake would have kicked. That’s why I wanted a steady partner for him who had no actual authority.”