was nothing wrong with her. That’s a machine for you!” And he dashed into the composing-room.
Valerie could have laughed if it hadn’t been so serious. The boy’s comical explosions at the old press, which he treated as if it were a live thing, amused everybody in the office. He reappeared almost immediately in the doorway with a face full of woe.
“It’s the engine,” he announced tragically. “She’s a goner all right. It’s all hands to the crank.”
“Good Lord!” smiled Dane, “what does he mean?”
“Oh, darn it! The oil engine. It goes off occasionally. The press will have to be kept on by hand. We won’t catch the train and everything will be late.”
They hurried into the composing-room. It had happened on the worst day that week. Both Ryder and Johnson were working feverishly on a political circular that Dane wanted out as soon as possible. The two men put down their cases of type with a resigned air. Dane looked at Valerie.
“I understand oil engines,” he said. “I’ll have a go at it if you like.”
“Oh, will you? Thanks.” She shot him as intent a look as she dared. Ryder and Johnson turned to their benches. Miss Hands and the girls at the cases all stared unblushingly at Dane as he walked to the engine at the back of the room, for this was the first time he had appeared there in the broad light of day. Jimmy, who had thought his white hands meant helplessness, gave him one glance of grudging admiration before going for his runners to help to turn the crank.
Dane pulled off his coat, spread a sheet of brown paper on the floor, and oblivious of the flutter he had brought to the chaste breast of Miss Hands, began to investigate the refractory machine.
