Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/116

 to alter a curve by a hair's breadth there, or merely to stand staring at it sometimes for hours at a time, staring and thinking.

One day when he was so standing, utterly lost in some unspoken vision, there came a knock at the door, followed by an impatient second one and a thunderous third, all during the moment of time that it took the shipmaster to put out of sight his beloved model. When the door was opened there strode in a tall sunburned person in blue uniform, Humphrey Reynolds come at last to see his old comrade, bringing a roll of government documents under his arm.

"Congress has taken a sudden turn toward increasing the Navy," the young officer explained, "and the orders are going out to build twelve ships in haste. One of the contracts is to come to you, if you will take it. They are even in such need that they have not laid down the specifications to the last bolt and rope's end, so that the man who builds this ship and the officer who superintends the construction, can really have something to say about the design."

He looked his old friend very steadily in the eye and saw a slow smile of deep, unspoken delight dawn upon the shipbuilder's face. Jonathan Adams' hard hands did not often tremble, but they shook a little now as he reached up to the shelf