The following Monday Miss Edith Hudson went to work for the International Machine Company as Mr. Compton's stenographer. Nor could the most fastidious have discovered aught to criticize in the appearance or deportment of Little Eva.
The same day the certified public accountants came. Mr. Harold Bince appeared nervous and irritable, and he would have been more nervous and more irritable had he known that Jimmy had just learned the amount of the pay-check from Everett and that he had discovered that, although five men had been laid off and no new ones employed since the previous week, the payroll check was practically the same as before--approximately one thousand dollars more than his note-book indicated it should be.
"Phew!" whistled Jimmy. "These C.P.A.s are going to find this a more interesting job than they anticipated. Poor old Compton! I feel mighty sorry for him, but he had better find it out now than after that grafter has wrecked his business entirely."
That afternoon Mr. Compton left the office earlier than usual, complaining of a headache, and the next morning his daughter telephoned that he was ill and would not come to the office that day. During the morning as Bince was walking through the shop he stopped to talk with Krovac.
Pete Krovac was a rat-faced little foreigner, looked upon among the men as a trouble-maker. He nursed a perpetual grievance against his employer and his job, and whenever the opportunity presented, and sometimes when it did not present itself, he endeavored to inoculate others with his dissatisfaction. Bince had hired the man, and during the several months that Krovac had been with the company, the assistant general manager had learned enough from other workers to realize that the man was an agitator and a troublemaker. Several times he had been upon the point of discharging him, but now he was glad that he had not, for he thought he saw in him a type that in the light of present conditions might be of use to him.
In fact, for the past couple of weeks he had been using the man in an endeavor to get some information concerning Torrance and his methods that would permit him to go to Compton with a valid argument for Jimmy's discharge.
"Well, Krovac," he said as be came upon the man, "is Torrance interfering with you any now?"
"He hasn't got my job yet," growled the other, "but he's letting out hard-working men with families without any reason. The first thing you know you'll have a strike on your hands."
"I haven't heard any one else complaining," said Bince. "You will, though," replied Krovac. "They don't any of us know when we are going to be canned to give Compton more profit, and men are not going to stand for that long."
"Then," said Bince, "I take it that he really hasn't interfered with you much?"
"Oh, he's always around asking a lot of fool questions," said Krovac.
"Last week he asked every man in the place what his name was and what wages he was getting. Wrote it all down in a little book. I suppose he is planning on cutting pay."
Bince's eyes narrowed. "He got that information from every man in the shop?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Krovac.
Bince was very pale. He stood in silence for some minutes, apparently studying the man before him. At last he spoke.
"Krovac," he said, "you don't like this man Torrance, do you?"
"No," said the other, "I don't."
"Neither do I," said Bince. "I know his plans even better than you.
This shop has short hours and good pay, but if we don't get rid of him it will have the longest hours and lowest pay of any shop in the city."
"Well?" questioned Krovac.
"I think," said Bince, "that there ought to be some way to prevent this man doing any further harm here."
He looked straight into Krovac's eyes.
"There is," muttered the latter.
"It would be worth something of course," suggested Bince. "How much?" asked Krovac.
"Oh, I should think it ought to be worth a hundred dollars," replied Bince.
Krovac thought for a moment.
"I think I can arrange it," he said, "but I would have to have fifty now."
"I cannot give it to you here," said Bince, "but if I should happen to pass through the shop this afternoon you might find an envelope on the floor beside your machine after I have gone."
The following evening as Jimmy alighted from the Indiana Avenue car at Eighteenth Street, two men left the car behind him. He did not notice them, although, as he made his way toward his boarding-house, he heard footsteps directly in his rear, and suddenly noting that they were approaching him rapidly, he involuntarily cast a glance behind him just as one of the men raised an arm to strike at him with what appeared to be a short piece of pipe.
Jimmy dodged the blow and then both men sprang for him. The first one Jimmy caught on the point of the chin with a blow that put its recipient out of the fight before he got into it, and then his companion, who was the larger, succeeded in closing with the efficiency expert.
