Agents from the Military Intelligence and the Department
of Justice scanned his employment lists and sent agents into the
plant. In the building where men and women were hired, each
applicant passed a desk where they were quietly surveyed by two
unobstrusive gentlemen in indifferent business suits who eyed them
carefully. Around the fuse department, where all day girls and
women handled guncotton and high-explosive powder, a special guard
was posted, day and night.
Early in March Clayton put Graham in charge of the first of the
long buildings to be running full, and was rewarded by a new look
in the boy's face. He was almost startled at the way he took it.
"I'll do my very best, sir," he said, rather huskily. "If I can't
fight, I can help put the swine out of business, anyhow."
He was by that time quite sure that Natalie had extracted a promise
of some sort from the boy. On the rare occasions when Graham was
at home he was quiet and suppressed.
He was almost always at Marion Hayden's in the evenings, and from
things he let fall, Clayton gathered that the irresponsible group
which centered about Marion was, in the boy's own vernacular,
rather "shot to pieces.
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