HE sight of the key did something more than to make Billy’s eyes open very wide; it struck to his legs. They grew so heavy that, for a minute, he couldn’t lift them at all. But he kept on trying, and finally succeeded in pulling up first one, and then the other, and in starting them both. Then they wanted to move fast, and he had hard work to slow them down to simply a quick walk. At last he reached the door, and hurried across the yard and down the corridor to the office.
When he opened the door, something struck to his feet, and fairly glued them to the threshold.
There at his desk, writing away hard, sat Mr. Prescott.
Billy’s blue eyes, large from seeing the key, grew still larger, so that, when Mr. Prescott finally looked up, he saw quite a different boy from the Billy whom he had left only the day before.
“Well, William,” he said, as he put down his pen, “having obeyed to the letter—I might say to the period—my injunction to keep your lips shut, suppose you open them.”
Billy’s tongue seemed to be fastened to the roof of his mouth tighter than his feet were to the floor, and he couldn’t seem to unfasten it.
“Perhaps,” continued Mr. Prescott, “it might be as well, just at this point, for me to inform you that surprise is one of the persistent elements of business. I met another telegram, so you meet me. What has happened?”
When Billy finally reached the desk and began to tell him about the key, Mr. Prescott whirled around in his chair and put his right thumb into the right armhole of his vest.
Before Billy had finished, though his tongue, having started, went very fast, Mr. Prescott put his other thumb in his other armhole, and leaned back in his chair till his shoulders seemed almost to fill the space between the desk and the railing.
“Well,” he said, when Billy had finished, “as you are the one in possession of the original facts, what do you think had better be done?”
If Mr. Prescott had only known it, Billy didn’t like him very well when he talked that way. But of course nobody can like anybody every minute of the time; for even a best hero is more than likely to have disagreeable spots. Billy’s father had told him that, and Billy was very much like his father in the way he had of forgetting disagreeables pretty soon after they happened. Just that minute, anyway, his whole mind was on that great iron key.
Besides, when Mr. Prescott talked that way, he always hit the man-side of Billy. Possibly Mr. Prescott knew that.
“I think, sir,” answered Billy, almost before he knew what he was saying, “that I can get the key.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” said Mr. Prescott. “Will you be so kind as to tell me about what time to-day you will deliver it?”
Billy looked at the clock.
Miss King’s keys kept right on—clickety-clickety-click.
Billy changed his weight to his other foot before he answered:
“About four o’clock, sir.”
Mr. Prescott looked at the clock, then he took up his pen, saying:
“It is now nearly half-past three. It would be a pity, in such an important matter, for you to fail for lack of time to work out any little theory that you happen to have originated. Suppose we make it half-past four o’clock.”
As Billy started for the door Mr. Prescott added:
“Having opened your lips, you may close them again, a little tighter than before. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Billy.
“Mind,” called Mr. Prescott, when Billy had almost closed the door, “you are to return at half-past four, key or no key.”
“Sure, sir,” answered Billy.
Things don’t always look the same on both sides of a door. Billy found that out as soon as he was alone in the corridor. But Billy had a theory, though Mr. Prescott may have thought that he was joking, and it was built on so firm a foundation that William Wallace offered, at once, to help him work it out.
Billy hadn’t visited Uncle John that day in the foundry simply for nothing. He had it all figured out in his mind that, as soon as the black-haired man had finished using the key for a pattern, he would put it back in the door; and Billy had said four o’clock because that was about the time when the molds were supposed to be ready.
When a man knew as much about molding as Mr. Prescott did, it did seem as if he might have figured that out himself.
Billy looked around for a place where he could hide to watch the door. There wasn’t anybody in sight, so he took plenty of time to decide.
Half-way down the corridor, on the right hand side, was a small closet that had been built up on the floor, by itself, so that Mr. Prescott could have a place to keep his motor clothes.
Billy went into that, and tried, by leaving the door part way open, to fix a crack through which he could watch the door. Finding that the crack was too far out of range, he started down the corridor to find another place.
He had just about decided to try hiding behind the tool room when he heard a step, and, looking up, saw Thomas Murphy, the timekeeper.
“It’s a great relief, William,” said Tom, “to see a friend like you. Does the super know about the key?”
Billy looked at Tom, and Tom looked at Billy. Bad as Tom felt, Billy felt three times worse. Billy had three things on his mind: first of all, he mustn’t tell a lie; then, he must keep the secret; and, if Tom Murphy stayed by that door, the man wouldn’t bring back the key.
Billy and William Wallace both thought as fast as they could. Billy got hold of an idea first. Perhaps by asking Tom a question he could throw him off the track, and could keep from telling a lie.
So he said: “Had you made up your mind, Mr. Murphy, when it would be best to tell him?”
“No, William,” answered Tom Murphy, in a hopeless tone, “I hadn’t. I’ve turned that thing over and over in my mind, and I’ve turned it inside out; and all the answer that I can get to it is that there’ll be no Tom Murphy any more a-keepin’ time at Prescott mill.”
“But you didn’t lose the key, Mr. Murphy,” said Billy, very sympathetically, now that his first danger was over.
“That I didn’t,” said Tom Murphy. “It’s been a rule and a regulation that that key was to stay in that door from morning to night. That key ought not to have been left in that door.”
“No,” said Billy, “excepting that everybody knows how much Mr. Prescott thinks of that key.”
“That’s just it,” said Thomas Murphy, pulling his old chair out from behind the door, and sinking into it with a sigh of relief.
“What would you,” he asked as he stretched out his lame leg, and clasped his hands across his chest, “what would you advise, as a friend? Don’t leave me, William,” he exclaimed, as Billy stepped outside.
“I won’t,” said Billy, stepping forward far enough to see the clock.
Fifteen minutes gone! Where had fifteen minutes gone?
“Do you think, William,” asked Thomas Murphy, as Billy went back to him, “that, if the super never finds that key, there will be any Thomas Murphy any more a-keepin’ time at Prescott mill?”
“You know,” said Billy, “that Mr. Prescott is a friend to everybody. I think,” he added slowly, because he was trying to keep still and at the same time to be wise, “I think he would be—more of—a friend—to a man—than to a key.”
“His grandfather’s key?” said Tom solemnly.
“His grandfather’s key,” repeated Billy, backing toward the door, and stepping out.
Five minutes of four!
Looking over at the foundry, Billy saw a man with shaggy black hair who, with his right hand pressed close against his side, was stepping back into the foundry door!
Billy himself stepped quickly back.
“William,” said Thomas Murphy, “you seem to be unusually oneasy.”
“It’s a very warm day,” said Billy.
“If it seems hot to you in here,” said Thomas Murphy, settling still further back in his chair, “what do you think it has been to me a-sittin’ out under that canopy in the sun?”
Billy grew desperate. “Mr. Murphy,” he said, “it seems to me—do you think, Mr. Murphy—I mean—don’t you think that Mr. Prescott expects you are sitting out there now?”
“That may be,” answered Thomas Murphy.
“Don’t you think,” said Billy, growing more and more desperate, “that it would be a good plan for us to go out there together?”
“Sometimes,” said Thomas Murphy, in an injured tone, “a man’s best friends can make things very hard for him.”
“Can I help you to get up?” asked Billy, going up to Thomas Murphy, and putting his hand on his arm.
“No, William,” said Thomas Murphy, moving his arm with more decision than was really necessary. “Thomas Murphy is still able to rise without the assistance of a—a friend.”
Slowly Thomas Murphy drew himself from the depths of the chair.
Billy, backing out the great door, saw the clock.
Ten minutes more gone!
“Hurry up!” said William Wallace. “Hurry up!”
“I tell you, Mr. Murphy,” said Billy in his most friendly tone, “I’ll go out under the canopy. Then, if Mr. Prescott does come out, he’ll see that there’s somebody at the gate.”
“Very well,” said Thomas Murphy, lowering his lame leg carefully down the step. “Very well.”
Billy, glad of a chance to work off his feelings, ran out to the gate as fast as he could.
Slowly, very slowly, Thomas Murphy came across the yard.
Billy, that he might not seem to be watching, stood with his back to the mill.
About the time that he thought Thomas Murphy would reach the gate, he heard a sudden exclamation. Turning around, he saw Thomas Murphy, timekeeper of Prescott mill, lying flat on his face.
Quarter-past four stood the hands of the clock. Never in his life had Billy seen them move so fast at that time of the day.
Hurrying back he asked, “Can I help you, Mr. Murphy?”
“Thank you, William,” answered Thomas Murphy, holding out his hand for help. “A friend in need is a friend indeed.”
As Billy bent over to help Thomas Murphy, he saw something that, for a moment, made him so excited that he couldn’t have told whether he was standing on his head or his heels.
A black-haired man was creeping along the wall toward the door of the mill!
When he was sure that he was standing on his heels, Billy looked at the clock.
Seven minutes left!
He helped Thomas Murphy to his chair. He even took time to say, “Mr. Murphy, there are some things that I have been wanting to ask you about iron.”
“Anything,” said Thomas Murphy, safe in his chair, “anything that I know is at your service, William.”
Then Billy said, “Mr. Prescott told me to come back at half-past four.”
“I should say,” remarked Thomas Murphy, “that you’ll have to hurry, William. Near as I can see the hands of that clock, it’s hard on to that now.”
Billy did hurry, and soon had the key safe in his hands.
As he went quickly down the corridor, William Wallace gave him some special advice:
“Don’t explain. Business is business. Just deliver the key.”
When Billy went into the office, Mr. Prescott glanced at the clock.
“Punctuality, William,” he said, “is a desirable thing in business.”
He took the key just as if he had been expecting it.
“Thank you, William,” he said.
Then, seeming to forget Billy, he began to look the key over, stem, bit, and bow, touching it here and there, and holding it carefully, as if it were something that he valued very much.
Realizing, at last, that Billy was waiting, he said:
“Surprise, as I was saying, is one of the elements that must be reckoned with in business.”
When he said that, he used his firm, business tone.
But his voice was very gentle as he looked straight into Billy’s eyes, and added:
“This time, William, the surprise is mine.”
