"Not very likely, Joe," Larry replied, as he passed on into the engine-room.
The boy was troubled and mystified now from a new cause.
Joe Cuttle was one of the new men, and, although he had been uniformly faithful, Larry was sure that he was standing in the doorway of the fire-room when he first came inside the gates, and that Joe must have seen those who were only a few yards distant conversing so mysteriously.
If he saw them, why did he try to evade the fact?
It was this more than any other circumstance that made Larry uneasy. He did not think the difficulty bore any relation to his encounter with Steve Croly in the morning, for of course Joe would not try to withhold any knowledge of that affair.
Not until late in the afternoon did the superintendent visit the engine-room.
He was a short, brisk man, with small, alert eyes that had a faculty of seeing more in one minute than most men could take in in half an hour. His face was dark almost to swarthiness and his cheeks and chin were smoothly shaven.
He popped his head into the engine-room and called out:
"Hi, there, Kendall! What's the word to-day? Eh, so it's the boy! Well, come here."
Larry came forward promptly; he knew this brisk gentleman liked him, and, but for the mysterious trouble at home, he would have rather seen him than not.