“Mr. Pollard,” reported Owen, soon, “this pipe is a small botch on the part of the contractor.”

“What’s wrong” asked the inventor, quickly, springing forward and bending over to examine.

“The pipe is about a half inch too long,” replied Owen.

“But one of the superintendent’s men over at the machine shop can cut it to fit?” asked the inventor, looking uneasy.

“Oh, he can cut it all right, but there’s the new thread to be cut, too,” explained the foreman, pointing.  “I’m sorry, sir, but if you want a good job, without any danger of botch, you’ll have to wire the contractors to rush a new pipe, cut exactly to the specifications.”

“But that will delay us at least forty-eight hours, and the launching date is so near at hand,” protested the inventor.

“You’d better put your launching off two days, Mr. Pollard, than take any chances of having a bad connection in your fuel feed pipes,” argued the foreman.

“Confound such luck!” growled Pollard, turning away.  “Well, come over to the office with me, and we’ll wire a kick and a prayer to the contractors.”

Just as he turned, the inventor barely failed to overhear something that Jack muttered in an aside to Hal.

“What’s that you’re saying, Benson?” demanded David Pollard.

“Oh, nothing much, sir,” replied Jack, quickly.  “I’m not foreman here, nor much of anything, for that matter.”

“Were you expressing an opinion about this pipe business?”

“Ye-es, sir.”

“You agree with me that the pipe can be cut properly at the machine shop of this yard?” insisted the inventor.  It was strange to ask such a question of a boy helper, but David Pollard, facing a delay in the launching of his craft, was ready to jump at any hope.

Jack Benson hesitated.

“I want a reply,” persisted Mr. Pollard.

“Why, yes,” Jack admitted.  “I don’t want to be forward, but I feel pretty sure the pipe can be measured both for its own length and the length it ought to be.  If there’s a good metal saw over at the machine shop, and a thread cutter, this pipe ought to be ready for safe fitting in half an hour.”

“That’s the way it looks to me, too,” broke in Mr. Farnum.  “Send the pipe over, anyway, with the proper measurements, and Partridge can tell you what’s what.”

“I won’t make the measurements.  I won’t have anything to do with it, or be responsible for a botched job,” snarled the foreman.

“You don’t have to, then,” replied Farnum, taking a spring steel tape from his pocket.  “Benson, you seem to have a clear-headed idea of what you’re talking about.  Take the measurements.  This tape has been standardized.”

It was not a matter of great difficulty.  Jack, with his chum’s aid, soon had the measurements taken.

“Since you youngsters know so much about it,” growled Joshua Owen, “you two can carry the pipe over to the machine shop.”