“That second stick pushes two ways.  A straight down push and a sideways push.  The bolt resists the down push and transmits it to the first stick, and that pushes against the sill that I marked a.  Now, the sideways push is against the butt of the first timber of the floor, and that’s passed on, same way, to the sill.

Illustration:  ["Well, that’s the whole trick”]

“Well, that’s the whole trick.  You begin at both ends at once and just keep right on going.  When the thing’s done it looks this way.  You see where the two sections meet in the middle, it’s just the same as the little fifteen-foot gallery that we made a picture of up here.”

“I understand that all right,” said Pete, “but I don’t see yet how you’re going to do it without some kind of scaffolding.”

“Easy.  I ain’t going to use a balloon, but I’ve got something that’s better.  It’ll be out here this afternoon.  Come and help me get things ready.”

There was not much to do, for the timber was already cut to the right sizes, but Bannon was not content till everything was piled so that when work did begin on the gallery it could go without a hitch.  He was already several days behind, and when one is figuring it as fine as Bannon was doing in those last days, even one day is a serious matter.  He could do nothing more at the belt gallery until his substitute for a scaffold should arrive; it did not come that afternoon or evening, and next morning when he came on the job it still had not been heard from.  There was enough to occupy every moment of his time and every shred of his thought without bothering about the gallery, and he did not worry about it as he would have worried if he had had nothing to do but wait for it.

But when, well along in the afternoon, a water boy found him up on the weighing floor and told him there was something for him at the office, he made astonishing time getting down.  “Here’s your package,” said Max, as Bannon burst into the little shanty.  It was a little, round, pasteboard box.  If Bannon had had the office to himself, he would, in his disappointment, have cursed the thing till it took fire.  As it was, he stood speechless a moment and then turned to go out again.

“Aren’t you going to open it, now you’re here?” asked Max.

Bannon, after hesitating, acted on the suggestion, and when he saw what it was, he laughed.  No, Brown had not forgotten the hat!  Max gazed at it in unfeigned awe; it was shiny as a mirror, black as a hearse, tall, in his eyes—­for this was his first near view of one—­as the seat of a dining-room chair.  “Put it on,” he said to Bannon.  “Let’s see how it looks on you.”

“Not much.  Wouldn’t I look silly in a thing like that, though?  I’d rather wear an ordinary length of stovepipe.  That’d be durable, anyway.  I wonder what Brown sent it for.  I thought he knew a joke when he saw one.”

Just then one of the under-foremen came in.  “Oh, Mr. Bannon,” he said, “I’ve been looking for you.  There’s a tug in the river with a big, steel cable aboard that they said was for us.  I told ’em I thought it was a mistake—­”