When darkness approached the bookkeeper closed his ledger and came over
to Bob's desk. In ten minutes he ran deftly over Bob's afternoon work;
re-checking the supply invoices, verifying the time checks, comparing
the tallies with the scalers' reports. So swiftly and accurately did he
accomplish this, with so little hesitation and so assured a belief in
his own correctness that the really taxing job seemed merely a bit of
light mental gymnastics after the day's work.

"Good!" he complimented Bob; "everything's correct."

Bob nodded, a little gloomily. It might be correct; but he was very
tired from the strain of it.

"It'll come easier with practice," said Collins; "always difficult to do
a new thing."

The whistle blew. Bob went directly to his room and sat down on the
edge of his bed. In spite of Collins's kindly meant reassurances, the
iron of doubt had entered his soul. He had tried for four months, and
was no nearer facility than when he started.

"If a man hadn't learned better than that, I'd have called him a dub and
told him to get off the squad," he said to himself, a little bitterly.
He thought a moment. "I guess I'm tired. I must buck up. If Collins and
Archie can do it, I can. It's all in the game. Of course, it takes time
and training. Get in the game!"