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CHAPTER XIX - PLOTTING.
The following Monday Miss Edith Hudson went to work for the International
Machine Company as Mr. Compton's stenographer. Nor could the most fastidious
have discovered aught to criticize in the appearance or deportment of Little Eva.
The same day the certified public accountants came. Mr. Harold Bince appeared
nervous and irritable, and he would have been more nervous and more irritable
had he known that Jimmy had just learned the amount of the pay-check from
Everett and that he had discovered that, although five men had been laid off and
no new ones employed since the previous week, the payroll check was practically
the same as before-- approximately one thousand dollars more than his note-
book indicated it should be.
"Phew!" whistled Jimmy. "These C.P.A.s are going to find this a more interesting
job than they anticipated. Poor old Compton! I feel mighty sorry for him, but he
had better find it out now than after that grafter has wrecked his business
entirely."
That afternoon Mr. Compton left the office earlier than usual, complaining of a
headache, and the next morning his daughter telephoned that he was ill and
would not come to the office that day. During the morning as Bince was walking
through the shop he stopped to talk with Krovac.
Pete Krovac was a rat-faced little foreigner, looked upon among the men as a
trouble-maker. He nursed a perpetual grievance against his employer and his job,
and whenever the opportunity presented, and sometimes when it did not present
itself, he endeavored to inoculate others with his dissatisfaction. Bince had hired
the man, and during the several months that Krovac had been with the company,
the assistant general manager had learned enough from other workers to realize
that the man was an agitator and a troublemaker. Several times he had been
upon the point of discharging him, but now he was glad that he had not, for he
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