The whistle had blown, and at a wave of the superintendent's hand all the other workmen departed for their various benches and machines.
Three minutes later Franklin and the others were closeted with Mr. Buckman in his private office. Here the whole story was gone over again, and then the superintendent asked each of them a great number of questions.
The young electrician told his version as straightforward as possible. He acknowledged that he loved to examine the machines and had often done so, but denied emphatically that he had been instrumental in ruining the particular machine in question.
Felton and Nolan had evidently rehearsed their falsehoods beforehand, for they now told them with a smoothness that was as astonishing to Franklin as they were painful. They had seen the young electrician at the machine with the knife in his hand and they had seen him leave the shop in a great hurry a minute or two later.
When they had all finished Mr. Buckman was more puzzled than ever as to what to do. He wished to make an example of somebody. But he remembered that Franklin had been recommended to him by Belden Brice, and that the speculator owned an interest in the Fan Works. It would not do to act hastily.
"All of you goto your work," he commanded,
