Lately Uncle Stanley had been making his headquarters at the bank—­his attitude toward the factory being one of scornful amusement.

“Women mechanics!” he sometimes scoffed to visitors at the bank.  “Women foremen!  Women presidents!  By Judas, I’m beginning to think Old Ned himself is a woman—­the sort of mischief he’s raising lately!...  Something’s bound to crack before long, though.”

In that last sentence you have the picture of Uncle Stanley.  Even as Mr. Micawber was always waiting for something to turn up, so Uncle Stanley was always waiting for something to go wrong.

Mary opened the meeting by showing the accountants’ report and then reading her proposed advertisement.  If you had been there, I think you would have seen the gleam of satisfaction in Uncle Stanley’s eye.

“I knew I’d catch her wrong yet,” he seemed to be saying to himself.  “As soon as she’s made a bit of money, she wants everybody to have it.  It’s the hen and the egg all over again—­they’ve simply got to cackle.”

Thus the gleam in Uncle Stanley’s eye.  Looking up at the end of her reading, Mary caught it.  “How he hates women!” she thought.  “Still, in a way, you can’t wonder at it....  If it hadn’t been for women and the things they can do he would have had the factory long ago.”  Aloud she said, “What do you think of it?”

“I think it’s a piece of foolishness, myself,” said Uncle Stanley promptly.  “But I know you are going to do it, if you’ve made up your mind to do it.”

“I’m not so sure it’s foolish,” said the judge.  “It seems to me it’s going to bring us a lot of new business.”

“Got all we can handle now, haven’t we?”

“Well, we can expand!  It wouldn’t be the first time in Spencer & Son’s history that the factory has been doubled, and, by Jingo, I believe Mary’s going to do it, too!”

Mary said nothing, but a few mornings later when the advertisement appeared in the leading newspapers throughout the country, she made a remark which showed that her co-directors had failed to see at least two of the birds at which she was throwing her stone....  She had the newspapers brought to her room that morning, and was soon reading the following quarter page announcement: 

THE FRUITS OF HER LABOUR

For the past six months, Spencer bearings have been made exclusively by women.

The first result of this is a finer degree of accuracy than had ever been attained before.

The second result is a reduction in the cost of manufacture, this notwithstanding the fact that every woman on our payroll has always received man’s wages, and we have never worked more than eight hours a day.

To those who watched the work done by women in the war, neither of the above results will be surprising.

Because of the accuracy of her work, Spencer bearings are giving better satisfaction than ever before.