any such game; so he's got to dig away at the filin' case and wear his last summer's suit until Christmas. Diggin' and keepin' quiet seemed to be his only play. Just as though he'd ever win any medals by the way he stacked papers away in little pasteboard boxes!

He wins somethin' else, though. One day the general manager rushes into Mallory's corner after somethin' he wanted in a hurry, and by the time he'd found it he'd pied things from one end of the coop to the other. Mallory was just tryin' to straighten out the mess, when along comes Piddie, with that pointed nose of his in front. Piddie don't ask any questions; he throws a fit. Why, he had Mallory on the carpet for forty minutes by the clock, givin' him the grand roast, and the only time Mallory opens up to tell him how it was he shuts him off with a, "That is sufficient, Mr. Mallory! I am here to get results, not excuses. Is that quite clear?"

"Yes, sir," says Mallory.

Say, but he did it well! He looks that peanut headed snipe straight in the eye all the time after that and takes what's comin' to him without39 turnin' a hair. It was "Yes, Mr. Piddie," and "No, Mr. Piddie"; but nothin' else. And the cooler and politer he was, the wilder Piddie got. When I hears him tell Mallory that another such break will cost him his job, I was achin' to throw the letterpress at him and break him in two. I couldn't hardly wait for Mallory to shut the door before I let loose.

39

"Say, Piddie," says I, "if you don't think you'll sleep easy to-night unless you give some one the bounce, why not fire me? Go on, now; I'll make out a case for you. Tell 'em I said you howled around like a pup with a sore ear."

Piddie turns white and gives me the glassy eye—that's all. I couldn't tease a fire out of him with a box of matches.

But that didn't make up for the way he'd roughed Mallory. I was still sore over it at closin' time; so I lays for Mallory and asks him why he didn't risk the job and take a crack at Piddie's jaw.

He just laughs. "Oh," says he, "I couldn't pay him that compliment."

Was that a joke, yes? Blamed if I could tell. Anyway, it wa'n't sense. And there's where I had the front to put it straight up to Mallory about his bein' stranded in a place where he had to take such pin jabbin' as that.

"Say," says I, "is it hard luck, or a late start, or what?"40

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