And now it was all here; beasts, birds, vaulting men, flying women, racing horses and all.  They had seen the great white tents gleaming in the sunlight up in the open fields, a mile away, and had heard the distant music of the band and caught glimpses of the long procession as it wound through the city streets below them.  This was at the noon hour, while they were waiting for the signal that should call them back into the dust and din of the screen-room, where they might dream, indeed, of circus joys while bending to their tasks, but that was all.  There was much wishing and longing.  There was some murmuring.  There was even a rash suggestion from one boy that they should go, in spite of the breaker and the bosses, and revel for a good half-day in the pleasures of the show.  But this treasonable proposition was frowned down without delay.  These boys had caught the spirit of loyalty from the men who worked at Burnham Breaker, and not even so great a temptation as this could keep them from the path of duty.

When the bell rang for them to return to work, not one was missing, each bench had its accustomed occupant, and the coal that was poured into the cars at the loading-place was never more free from slate and stone than it was that afternoon.

But it was hot up in the screen-room.  The air was close and stifling, and heavy with the choking dust.  The noise of the iron-teethed rollers crunching the lumps of coal, and the bang and rattle of ponderous machinery were never before so loud and discordant, and the black streams moving down their narrow channels never passed beneath these dizzy boys in monotony quite so dull and ceaseless as they were passing this day.

Suddenly the machinery stopped.  The grinding and the roaring ceased.  The frame-work of the giant building was quiet from its trembling.  The iron gates that held back the broken coal were quickly shut and the long chutes were empty.

The unexpected stillness was almost startling.  The boys looked up in mute astonishment.

Through the dust, in the door-way at the end of the room, they saw the breaker boss and the screen-room boss talking with Robert Burnham.  Then Mr. Burnham advanced a step or two and said:—­

“Boys, Mr. Curtis tells me you are all here.  I am pleased with your loyalty.  I had rather have the good-will and confidence of the boys who work for me than to have the money that they earn.  Now, I intend that you shall see the circus if you wish to, and you will be provided with the means of admission to it.  Mr. Curtis will dismiss you for the rest of the day, and as you pass out you will each receive a silver quarter as a gift for good behavior.”

For a minute the boys were silent.  It was too sudden a vision of happiness to be realized at once.  Then one little fellow stood up on his bench and shouted:—­

“Hooray for Mr. Burnham!” The next moment the air was filled with shouts and hurrahs so loud and vigorous that they went echoing through every dust-laden apartment of the huge building from head to loading-place.