Bannon had quickly caught the changed attitude toward him, and for several days kept his own counsel.  But one morning, after dictating some letters to Hilda, he lingered.

“How’s our fund getting on?” he said, smiling.  “Have you looked lately?”

“No,” she said, “I haven’t.”

He leaned over the railing and opened the box.

“It’s coming slow,” he said, shaking his head.  “Are you sure nobody’s been getting away from us?”

Hilda was seated before the typewriter.  She turned partly around, without taking her ringers from the keys.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.  “I haven’t been watching it.”

“We’ll have to be stricter about it,” said Bannon.  “These fellows have got to understand that rules are rules.”

He spoke with a little laugh, but the remark was unfortunate.  The only men who came within the railing were Max and Peterson.

“I may have forgotten it, myself,” she said.

“That won’t do, you know.  I don’t know but what I can let you off this time—­I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Miss Vogel:  I’ll make a new rule that you can come in without wiping your feet if you’ll hand in a written excuse.  That’s the way they did things when I went to school.”  He turned to go, then hesitated again.  “You haven’t been out on the job yet, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“I rather think you’d like it.  It’s pretty work, now that we’re framing the cupola.  If you say so, I’ll fix it for you to go up to the distributing floor this afternoon.”

She looked back at the machine.

“The view ain’t bad,” he went on, “when you get up there.  You can see down into Indiana, and all around.  You could see all Chicago, too, if it wasn’t for the smoke.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“Why, yes, Mr. Bannon,” she said; “I’d like to go very much.”

“All right,” he replied, his smile returning.  “I’ll guarantee to get you up there somehow, if I have to build a stairway.  Ninety feet’s pretty high, you know.”

When Bannon reached the elevator he stood for a moment in the well at the west end of the structure.  This well, or “stairway bin,” sixteen by thirty-two feet, and open from the ground to the distributing floor, occupied the space of two bins.  It was here that the stairway would be, and the passenger elevator, and the rope-drive for the transmission of power from the working to the distributing floor.  The stairway was barely indicated by rude landings.  For the present a series of eight ladders zigzagged up from landing to landing.  Bannon began climbing; halfway up he met Max, who was coming down, time book in hand.

“Look here, Max,” he said, “we’re going to have visitors this afternoon.  If you’ve got a little extra time I’d like to have you help get things ready.”

“All right,” Max replied.  “I’m not crowded very hard today.”

“I’ve asked your sister to come up and see the framing.”