Jimmy turned and left the room. He was on the point of going to
Compton's office and asking for authority to see the pay-roll, and then
it occurred to him that Compton would probably not take sides against
his assistant general manager and future son-in-law.

"I've got to get at it some other way," said Jimmy, "but you bet your
life I'm going to get at it. It looks to me as though there's something
funny about that pay-roll."

On his way out he stopped at Everett's cage. "What was the amount of the
check for the pay-roll for this week, Everett?" he asked.

"A little over ninety-six hundred dollars."

"Thanks," said Jimmy, and returned to the shops to continue his study of
his men, and as he studied them he asked many questions, made many notes
in his little note-book, and always there were two questions that were
the same: "What is your name? What wages do you get?"

"I guess," said Jimmy, "that in a short time I will know as much about
the payroll as the assistant general manager."

Nor was it the pay-roll only that claimed Jimmy's attention. He found
that several handlings of materials could be eliminated by the adoption
of simple changes, and that a rearrangement of some of the machines
removed the necessity for long hauls from one part of the shop to
another. After an evening with the little volume he had purchased for
twenty-five cents in the second-hand bookshop he ordered changes that
enabled him to cut five men from the pay-roll and at the same time do