With me it's like with every one
else: nothing venture nothing gain."
Joe crawled out of the fence corner and went stealthily along the road
behind Hugh. A fervor seized him and he thought he would like to creep
close and touch with his finger the hem of Hugh's coat. Afraid to try
anything so bold his mind took a new turn. He ran in the darkness along the
road toward town and, when he had crossed the bridge and come to the New
York Central tracks, turned west and went along the tracks until he came to
the new factory. In the darkness the half completed walls stuck up into the
sky, and all about were piles of building materials. The night had been
dark and cloudy, but now the moon began to push its way through the clouds.
Joe crawled over a pile of bricks and through a window into the building.
He felt his way along the walls until he came to a mass of iron covered by
a rubber blanket. He was sure it must be the lathe his money had bought,
the machine that was to do the work of a hundred men and that was to make
him comfortably rich in his old age. No one had spoken of any other machine
having been brought in on the factory floor. Joe knelt on the floor and put
his hands about the heavy iron legs of the machine. "What a strong thing
it is! It will not break easily," he thought. He had an impulse to do
something he knew would be foolish, to kiss the iron legs of the machine
or to say a prayer as he knelt before it.
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