a silk lid, "what is your name?"

"Ah, w'at's the use?" says I, duckin' my head. "Look at that hair! You might's well begin callin' me Torchy; you'd come to it."

He didn't grin nor nothin'; but only I see his eyes wrinkle a little at the corners. "Very well, Torchy," says he. "I suppose you have your references?"

"Nah, I ain't," says I. "But if you're stuck on such things I can get 'em. There's a feller down on Ann-st. that'll write beauts for a quarter a throw."

"So?" says he. "Then we'll pass that point. Why did you leave your last place?"

"By request," says I. "The stiff gives me the fire. He said I was too fresh."

"He was mistaken, I suppose," says Mr. Pepper. "You're not fresh, are you?"

"Well say, I ain't no last year's limed egg," says I. "If you're lookin' for somethin' that's been in the brine all winter, you'd better put the hook in again."

He rubs his chin at that. "Do you like hard work?" says he.

"Think I'd be chasin' up an office boy snap, if I did?" says I.7

7

He takes a minute or so to let that soak in, knockin' his cigar ashes off on the rug in that careless way a man that ain't married does, and then he springs another.

"I presume that if you were left alone in the office occasionally," says he, "you could learn to run the business?"

"Nix, not!" says I. "When I plays myself for a confidential manager I wants to pull down more than four per. Givin' book agents the quick back up and runnin' errands is my strong points. For tips on the market and such as that I charges overtime."

Course, I'd figured it was all off by then, seein' as how I hadn't rung the bell at any crack. That's why I was so free with the hot air. Mr. Pepper, he squints at me good and hard, and then pushes the call button.

"Mr. Sweetwater," says he, "this young man's name is Torchy. I've persuaded him to assist us in running the affairs of the Glory Be Mining Company. Put him on the payroll at five a week, and then induce that mass meeting in the corridor to adjourn."

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