"No doubt you can. But you need not be in a hurry. You can stop at my house for the balance of this week. I will have a room set aside for you."
Franklin demurred, but Belden Brice insisted, and finally it was arranged as the speculator had mentioned. Then the young electrician took a train, and went home to tell the news, and get his trunk full of things.
He was on hand early on the following morning, and without much ceremony was set to work beside two older boys. The work of the three consisted of polishing up the completed motors and placing them in square japanned cases. For this labor they were allowed four cents and a half on each piece.
Franklin soon acquired the knack of doing the work, and went at it with a will. He was naturally handy, and by noontime could do the work almost as well as his two companions.
"Say, you don't want to work too fast," grumbled Bob Jackson, one of the other boys, a clumsy specimen of the toughest class of factory hands. "If you do that, you'll get too much done, and then the boss will cut down the price per piece."
"But the work can be done much faster than we are now doing it," returned Franklin. "It is very simple."
"It can't be done no faster," put in Mike Nolan,
