Part 5 (1/2)
”But that will delay us at least forty-eight hours, and the launching date is so near at hand,” protested the inventor.
”You'd better put your launching off two days, Mr. Pollard, than take any chances of having a bad connection in your fuel feed pipes,” argued the foreman.
”Confound such luck!” growled Pollard, turning away. ”Well, come over to the office with me, and we'll wire a kick and a prayer to the contractors.”
Just as he turned, the inventor barely failed to overhear something that Jack muttered in an aside to Hal.
”What's that you're saying, Benson?” demanded David Pollard.
”Oh, nothing much, sir,” replied Jack, quickly. ”I'm not foreman here, nor much of anything, for that matter.”
”Were you expressing an opinion about this pipe business?”
”Ye-es, sir.”
”You agree with me that the pipe can be cut properly at the machine shop of this yard?” insisted the inventor. It was strange to ask such a question of a boy helper, but David Pollard, facing a delay in the launching of his craft, was ready to jump at any hope.
Jack Benson hesitated.
”I want a reply,” persisted Mr. Pollard.
”Why, yes,” Jack admitted. ”I don't want to be forward, but I feel pretty sure the pipe can be measured both for its own length and the length it ought to be. If there's a good metal saw over at the machine shop, and a thread cutter, this pipe ought to be ready for safe fitting in half an hour.”
”That's the way it looks to me, too,” broke in Mr. Farnum. ”Send the pipe over, anyway, with the proper measurements, and Partridge can tell you what's what.”
”I won't make the measurements. I won't have anything to do with it, or be responsible for a botched job,” snarled the foreman.
”You don't have to, then,” replied Farnum, taking a spring steel tape from his pocket. ”Benson, you seem to have a clear-headed idea of what you're talking about. Take the measurements. This tape has been standardized.”
It was not a matter of great difficulty. Jack, with his chum's aid, soon had the measurements taken.
”Since you youngsters know so much about it,” growled Joshua Owen, ”you two can carry the pipe over to the machine shop.”
Other workmen sprang to help in pa.s.sing the pipe up through the manhole and down over the side of the hull. When Jack and Hal got the pipe up on their shoulders they staggered a bit under its weight. But they were game, and started away with it.
”That's a shame,” growled Mike O'brien. ”Boss, leave me go 'an be helpin' the b'yes with that load.”
”Go ahead,” nodded Mr. Farnum. O'brien went nimbly down the ladder, placing one of his own st.u.r.dy shoulders under the forward end of the pipe, while Benson got back with Hal Hastings at the other end. In about three-quarters of an hour the trio were back, with the pipe cut to the right length, and with a new screw-thread cut at the shortened end.
”Now, you can demonstrate your own work, Benson,” laughed Mr. Farnum.
”Fit the pipe yourself, and call on the men for what help you want.”
At that, Joshua Owen folded his arms as he stepped back scowling. Yet when the crew, under Jack's direction, had finished fitting the pipe in place, not even this angered foreman dared say that it was not fitted properly.
The next work called for fitting some pipe-joints, and in this a red lead cement was used. One of these joint-makings fell to Benson and Hal.
”Here's yer cement,” muttered the scowling Dan Jaggers, pa.s.sing a rough ball of the stuff to young Benson.
”Is this the best you have?” asked Jack, eyeing the cement with disfavor.
”Yes,” growled Dan, ”and it's plenty good enough.”