There came the murmur of voices as a door was opened.  The voices came nearer.  Then quick footsteps.  Jock recognized them.  He rose, smiling.  Sam Hupp, vibrating electric energy, breezed in.

“Oh—­hello!” he said, surprised.  Jock’s smile widened to a grin.  “You back?”

“Hello, Hupp,” he said, coolly.  It was the first time that he had omitted the prefix.  “You just bet I’m back.”

There flashed across Sam Hupp’s face a curious little look.  The next instant it was gone.

“Well,” said Jock, and took a long breath.

“Mr. Berg wants to see you.”

Hupp plunged into his work.

“Me?  The Old Man wants to see me?”

“Yes,” snapped Hupp shortly.  Then, in a new tone, “Look here, son. 
If he says—­” He stopped, and turned back to his work again.

“If he says what?”

“Nothing.  Better run along.”

“What’s the hurry?  I want to tell you about—­”

“Better tell him.”

“Oh, all right,” said Jock stiffly.  If that was the way they treated a fellow who had turned his first real trick, why, very well.  He flung out of the little room and made straight for the Old Man’s office.

Seated at his great flat table desk, Bartholomew Berg did not look up as Jock entered.  This was characteristic of the Old Man.  Everything about the chief was deliberate, sure, unhurried.  He finished the work in hand as though no other person stood there waiting his pleasure.  When at last he raised his massive head he turned his penetrating pale blue eyes full on Jock.  Jock was conscious of a little tremor running through him.  People were apt to experience that feeling when that steady, unblinking gaze was turned upon them.  And yet it was just the clear, unwavering look with which Bartholomew Berg, farmer boy, had been wont to gaze out across the fresh-plowed fields to the horizon beyond which lay the city he dreamed about.

“Tell me your side of it,” said Bartholomew Berg tersely.

“All of it?” Jock’s confidence was returning.

“Till I stop you.”

“Well,” began Jock.  And standing there at the side of the Old Man’s desk, his legs wide apart, his face aglow, his hands on his hips, he plunged into his tale.

“It started off with a bang from the minute I walked into the office of the plant and met Snyder, the advertising manager.  We shook hands and sparked—­just like that.”  He snapped thumb and finger.  “What do you think!  We belong to the same frat!  He’s ’93.  Inside of ten minutes he and I were Si-washing around like mad.  He introduced me to his aunt.  I told her who I was, and all that.  But I didn’t start off by talking business.  We got along from the jump.  They both insisted on showing me through the place.  I—­well,”—­he laughed a little ruefully,—­“there’s something about being shown through a factory that sort of paralyzes my brain.  I always feel that I ought to be asking keen, alert, intelligent questions