ON TIME
The lawyer sat staring in surprise at the little roll of bills Ben
had placed on the desk before him. Then his countenance expanded.
“You have solved the problem, Hardy. You are sure you want to invest
all that money?”
“To help my father—I guess so!” replied our hero with energy.
“All right,” cried Mr. Pearsons briskly, arising from his chair.
“Here sit down at that desk yonder,” and he pointed to an inner room.
“Now then, you’re a smart boy, and I see it. Write out in the most
exact detail what you want wired.”
“You think your Washington correspondent can follow out instructions
explicitly?”
“Oh, I’ll guarantee him.”
Ben went to the inner office and set to work at once. It was
fortunate that he had acted as secretary for his father on occasions
similar to the present one. Ben made a rough draft of what he wanted
to say, and then he studied and revised it. This took an hour of his
time.
When he had copied the description, he felt highly satisfied. He
believed that any ordinary draftsman could make drawings of the
airship parts from his directions. They made four pages of foolscap.
“Excellent—splendid!” declared Mr. Pearsons, as an hour later he
read over Ben’s work. “I’ll send this to Washington over the wires
instanter. I shall also instruct my correspondent to telegraph your
father if he completes the matter to-day.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pearsons.”
“The thanks all belong to you, Hardy,” insisted the lawyer, with an
admiring glance at Ben. “Any time you feel like taking up with the
law, there’s a place for you in this office, remember that.”
“I’m too full of the airship fever to think of anything like that
just now,” smiled Ben.
“That’s all right, follow your bent as long as it is a legitimate and
useful one. I think you can advise your father that we have scooped
the enemy on the first move in the game.”
Ben had no intention of disclosing his last action to his father,
until he was sure that his plan had met with success. He went home
and had lunch with his father. They pottered around the work yard for
a spell. Then Ben went down town.
It was about five o’clock, and he was on his way homewards again,
when he ran up against Caleb Dunn.
“Hold on, there, Ben Hardy,” hailed the foreman at the Saxton
Automobile Works. “Just the fellow I wanted to see.”
“What about, Mr. Dunn?”
“About your father’s affairs. Here, give me all the details of this
tangle with Saxton.”
Ben realized that the bluff, outspoken foreman was a genuine friend
of his father. He began a recital of most of the facts concerning his
father’s present trouble.
A sort of a subdued growl issued from the lips of the foreman when he
had concluded. His face was grim and angry.
“You come with me, Hardy,” he said promptly.
“Where, Mr. Dunn?”
“To the Saxton works.”
“I had rather not go there,” demurred Ben, holding back a trifle.
“Got to,” declared Dunn definitely, “if I have to lug you there
bodily. You ain’t the one who will get hurt. It’s Saxton.”
The foreman pranced down the street at a furious rate. Ben kept up
with him. Dunn acted like a smouldering volcano. He gritted his
teeth, he clenched his fists ever and anon, he emitted growls and
little roars.
“The escape valve will burst if I don’t get action,” he advised Ben.
“Hurry up.”
When they reached the plant, Dunn proceeded straight towards the
private office of its proprietor.
“Mr. Saxton is very busy over some accounts,” advised the bookkeeper.
“He’ll see me, or I’ll burst in the door,” declared the forcible
Dunn, thrusting aside the office underling, and opening the door
before him. “You keep with me, Hardy,” he advised.
Jasper Saxton looked up from his desk in an irritated way at the bold
intrusion. Then, observing Ben, he scowled darkly.
“What’s that boy doing here?” he demanded.
“I brought him,” retorted Dunn.
“Take him away again. He has no business around here.”
“Yes, he has, and he’ll stay,” observed Dunn sharply. “I need him.”
“What for?”
“As a witness.”
“Witness to what?” demanded Saxton, with a blank stare.
“To what I’m going to tell you. Saxton, you are an unmitigated
scoundrel!”
“W—what?”
With a bound the manufacturer came to his feet. He seemed about to
spring upon his audacious foreman. He doubled up his fists and tried
to awe the venturesome Dunn, who coolly looked him in the eye.
“Oh, yes,” derided the foreman. “Try it. Just once! I think I’d be
willing to pay a big fine just for the excuse to give you the beating
of your life.”
“What’s that? what’s this?” gasped the astonished Saxton.
“Say,” continued his foreman in sharp, cutting tones. “I’ve worked my
last stroke for the meanest man I ever knew. You’ve lost a better man
in Martin Hardy, but you’ll miss me just the same. Saxton, you are a
thief. You stole poor Hardy’s automobile patents. You are now trying
to rob him of his airship patents. You’ve sold your soul outright,
and I predict that you’ll go down in failure and disgrace. I’m
through with you, and in time every decent man in your employ will
leave you in the lurch. You sent me out to-day to use my influence
to get that big motor-cycle order from the Evans people. Well, I’ve
got it, and I’m going to turn it over to the Diebold works. You
unmitigated scoundrel! Come, Hardy.”
Ben saw Jasper Saxton, white and trembling, sink back into his
chair in a heap, collapsed. As they got outside, his impetuous but
determined companion left him summarily, with the words:
“Tell your father I shall be up to see him this evening.”
“Whew!” commented Ben, in one long marveling breath.
His step was brisk and his face beaming as he went homewards.
Things had taken a turn. If he and his father had met with some
misfortunes, the same had brought to their rescue staunch, loyal
friends.
Ben told his father about Mr. Dunn, and Mr. Hardy brightened up
somewhat. After supper Ben went down town to the village telegraph
office. He knew the night despatcher, who welcomed him with a
friendly smile.
“Nothing for my father, is there, Mr. Noyes?” asked Ben.
“Nothing so far. Expecting something?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, it may come in the half rate grist. That begins soon. Won’t
you wait?”
Ben sat down. The dispatcher attended to his wires. Then, as a new
clicking succeeded to a brief lapse in business, he smiled and nodded
at Ben, while writing out the message.
“I’ll deliver it to my father,” said our hero. “Don’t mind an
envelope.”
“Just receipt for him, then,” advised the operator, handing Ben the
yellow sheet. “Charges prepaid.”
“Hurrah!” shouted Ben irrepressibly, as he glanced at the sheet
and summarily bolted from the place, a keen delight overcoming his
embarrassment.
His eyes sparkled and he ran like the wind all the way home. He
was the messenger of good news, indeed. As he came to the house he
found the sitting room illuminated brightly. It cheered his heart
to observe his father laughing cheerily, while there was a growing
happy expression on the face of his mother.
They had company. Two men were in the same room. They were Caleb
Dunn, and Mr. Earle from the Diebold machine shops at Martinville.
Ben paused unobserved at the open window of the sitting room to learn
that Earle had made a splendid offer to his father to start in at
work at Martinville.
Then our hero entered the house through the kitchen. On the table he
noticed the airship parts that had been returned.
“Father,” he said, bursting rather unceremoniously upon the group in
the sitting room, the open telegram in his hand, “here is some good
news for you.”
Mr. Hardy took the paper. He was trembling all over as he perused it.
A look of intense joy illumined his usually serious face.
The telegram read:
“Claim filed on two airship inventions of Martin Hardy. All rights
protected.”