“Hell!  Any one would think, to hear you talk, that I had threatened to betray.”

“Every man to his own skin,” replied McQuade philosophically.  He then sat down before the typewriter.  There were two blank sheets in the roller, with a carbon between.  The girl had left her machine all ready for the morrow’s work.  McQuade picked out his sentence laboriously.

“There, sign that.”

The paper read: 

“I, James Morrissy, the undersigned, do hereby declare that I have received $1,000, in two sums of $500 each, from Daniel McQuade, these sums being payment agreed upon for my bringing about the strike at the Bennington shops.”

Morrissy looked at the boss incredulously.

“I say, Mac, have you gone crazy?” he cried.  “Do you want evidence like this lying around in your safe?  It’s the penitentiary for both of us if any one finds that.”

“I know what I am doing,” McQuade responded quietly, as indeed he did.

“But look; you’ve got the strike and I’ve got the cash; that makes us quits.”

“Sign it,” was all McQuade replied to this argument.

“All right.  What’s bad for me is bad for you,” and without further ado Morrissy affixed his fist to the sheet.

“Here’s the duplicate for you.”

Morrissy lighted a match and set fire to the sheet; he stamped on the ashes with grim satisfaction.

“Not for mine,” with a laugh.  “You’re welcome to yours.”

McQuade folded his deliberately and put it away in the safe.  The sheet of carbon paper he crumpled into a ball and tossed into the waste-basket.  We all commit blunders at one time or another, and McQuade had just committed his.

“That’s all, Morrissy.  I think I can trust you fully.  I mean no harm, boy; ’tis only self-preservation.”

“Oh, so long as your name’s on it there’s no kick coming from me; only I never saw you do such a fool thing before.  Anything else to-day?”

“No.  You might keep tab on that fool Bolles.  He’s been drunk ever since he came back from New York.  And he doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“He’s the only man we have who can handle the dagos.  I’ll see you up at Dutch Hall to-night.  Donnelly is making a speech there, and we’ll open a few kegs of beer for the boys.”

When Morrissy was gone McQuade laughed softly and went to the safe again.  He proceeded to do to his receipt exactly what Morrissy had done to his—­burn it.  So long as Morrissy believed that McQuade held his signature, so long might Morrissy be trusted.  It was only an idea, but it proved that the boss knew his lieutenants tolerably well.

“The blackleg would sell the tomb off his father’s grave,” he mused, brushing the ashes from his clothes.