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Updated: June 8, 2025
MacBride was fond of saying that Bannon's tact in handling men was unequalled; but Bannon himself did not think of it in this way to him, trouble with the laborers or the carpenters or the millwrights meant loss of time and loss of money, the two things he was putting in his time to avoid; and until now he had found the maligned walking delegate a fair man when he was fairly dealt with.
He had yet to become accustomed to Bannon's methods; but he had seen enough of him to believe that it would be done if Bannon said so. They were halfway to the office when Max said, with a touch of embarrassment: "How's Hilda going to take hold, Mr. Bannon?" "First-class." Max's eyes sparkled. "She can do anything you give her. Her head's as clear as a bell."
"It's right here you're trying to make money by putting on one man to do the work of two." "How?" Bannon's quiet manner exasperated the delegate. "Use your eyes, man you can't make eight men carry a twelve-by-fourteen stick." "How many shall I put on?" "Ten." "All right." "And you'd better put eight men on the other sticks." The delegate looked up, nettled that Bannon should yield so easily.
"Of course," he was concluding, "the thing'll wabble a good deal, specially if it's as windy as this, and it won't be easy to work on, but it won't fall if we make everything fast." Pete had listened pretty closely at first, but now Bannon noticed that his attention seemed to be wandering to a point a few inches above Bannon's head. He was about to ask what was the matter when he found out.
Another thing was recognized by the men at work on that night shift, even by the laborers who carried timbers, and grunted and swore in strange tongues; this was that the night shift men had suddenly begun to feel a most restless energy crowding them on, and they worked nearly as well as Bannon's day shifts.
"Start her up, boys," he called, when the job was done, and, with the leg jolting under his hands as he climbed, he came back into the tower. At eight o'clock next morning, as Bannon and MacBride were standing in the superintendent's office, he came in and held out his hand. "She's full, Mr. Bannon. I congratulate you." "Full, eh?" said MacBride. Then he dropped his hand on Bannon's shoulder.
Max walked around the table, pointing out his own, Pete's, James', and Bannon's seats, and those of the committee. The middle seat, next to Bannon's he passed over. "Hold on," said Pete, "you forgot something." Max grinned and drew back the middle chair. "This is for the guest of honor," he said, and looked at Hilda. Pete was looking at her, too, and James all but Bannon.
He opened his bundle and unrolled a door mat, which he laid in front of the gate. Miss Vogel was smiling, but Bannon's face was serious. He cut a square piece from the wrapping paper, and sitting on the table, printed the placard: "Wipe your feet! Or put five cents in the box." Then he nailed both box and placard to the railing, and stood back to look at his work. "That will do it," he said.
Bannon's excellent moral character and his most imprudent habits, and illustrating by anecdotes of various other boarders she had had at one time and another, she led up to the statement that she had seen nothing of him since the night before, and that she had twice knocked at his door without getting any reply.
Max could make little out of it, for Bannon's face was under water half the time, but he caught such phrases as "Pete's darned foolishness," "College boy trick," "Lie abed all the morning," and "Better get an alarm clock" which thing and the need for it Bannon greatly despised and he reached the conclusion that the matter was nothing more serious than that Bannon had overslept.
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