"All right! Let the tape go."
Alma took off the brass ring, and the steel ribbon ran like a glittering snake through the grass, and she slowly followed it and joined her knight.
"Once more, please. Hold the ring on this bit of a stake that I've set up in the ground."
Alma, like a good girl, did as she was bid, and the ribbon ran out again to its full length. Another stake was set up, and the theodolite was placed in position and a sight obtained at the top of the tall chimney. A little figuring in a note-book, and then the son of high science quietly remarked:
"Seventy-six feet four inches—short five feet two inches."
Just here several urchins of an inquiring turn of mind drew near and began to make infantile comments, and asked with charming freedom if it was circus.
"No!" said Alma, from under her paper tent. "No! Run away, children, run away."
It was too warm for so much exertion, and they wouldn't move.
"Oh! never mind them. They don't trouble me; and if it amuses them, it's so much clear gain."
"They are some of the factory children, and I thought they might bother you."