I will here deceive no one: it was Billy. He explained afterward that he possessed better clothes, but had mislaid them somehow, and that the cut over his eye he got in quelling a pay-night insurrection in his line-gang out in Iowa, one of whom struck him with a pair of four-hole connectors. I am sorry to confess that I once felt pride in the fact that Billy knocked the linemen's heads together—and yet Pa talks of hard knocks!—until they subsided, the blood, meanwhile, running all down over his face and clothing and theirs. It was very brutal, in outward seeming, no matter what plea of necessity may be urged for it.

I almost fell back into the doorway, he was so near and so big. His way of removing his abominable old hat, and his bow, gave me a queer little mental jolt, it was so graceful and elegant, in spite of the overalls and the faded shirt.

"I was referred to this place as Mr. Blunt's office," said he. "Can you direct me to him?"

Now Pa is as hard to approach as any Oriental potentate; but I supposed that Billy was one of the men from the factory, and had business, and I was a little fluttered by the wonderful depth and sweetness of his voice; so I just said: "This way, please"—and took him in to where Pa was sawing the air and dictating a blood-curdling letter to a firm of contractors in San Francisco, who had placed themselves outside the pale of humanity by failing to get results from our new Polyphase Generator. (Billy afterward told them what was the matter with it.) I saw that my workman had picked out an exceedingly unpsychological moment, if he expected to make a very powerful appeal to Pa's finer instincts.

"Well," roared Pa, turning on him with as much ferocity as if he had been a San Francisco contractor of the deepest dye, "what can I do for you, sir?"

"My name is Helmerston," started Billy.

"I'm not getting up any directory," shouted Pa. "What do you want?"

"I'm just through with a summer's line-work in the West," answered Billy, "and I took the liberty of applying for employment in your factory. I have—"

"The blazes you did!" ejaculated Pa, glaring at Billy from under his eyebrows. "How did you get in here?"

I was over at the filing-cases, my face just burning, for I was beginning to see what I had done. Billy looked in my direction, and as our eyes met he smiled a little.