"Only bigger and busier than ever finishing up contracts," came the reply.
They were edging toward the main gate, when some one came hurrying up behind and literally threw himself upon the two lads.
"Well, I'll be horn-swaggled if it ain't me good old buddies Jay Thacker and Dick Monaghan," came the precipitous cry. "Mit me, boys, I'm tickled to death to see you all again."
Turning, the Brighton boys found themselves face to face with their old friend, Larry Seymour, one of their old Bridgeford crowd who had gone away into the army early in the war. Larry, the life of the party, who could find fun in a funeral and keep things stirring all the time.
"Hello, Larry," the chums exclaimed in unison, fairly hugging the newcomer. It had been more than two years since they had last met. And what a lot had happened! Larry was in overalls and begrimed with all the firsthand evidences of toil.
"Working in the yard?" asked Dick after the hand-pumping had subsided and they had told somewhat in hurried detail where they had been and what they had been doing since last they were together.
"Am I working? Say, bo, if rivets was railroad spikes I'd have built a line to Mars by way of Venus and all around to the moon again," was the bantering reply.
"Think we can land a job again?" asked Dick.
"Aces beat deuces every time, fellows," was Larry's somewhat flippant reply. "If you guys can't get a job at the works again then the figure of Justice in the courthouse has lost the scales she's been carrying in her good right fist all these years."