CHAPTER III 

 HARD HIT 

 Drew was not surprised to find that his employer was not alone. A man whom he now recognized as the agent of the estate controlling the building was seated at one end of the desk and was drumming upon it with his fingers. 

 Tyke was hunched up in his big revolving chair with a look of agitation on his face. His hands were clenching and unclenching rapidly. It was evident that something much out of the ordinary had occurred to rob him of his usual placidity. 

 He motioned Drew to a seat. 

 "Well, Allen," began Grimshaw, in a voice that he tried in vain to render calm, "it's come at last. We've got to get out of the old place." 

 "What?" cried the young man; yet this only confirmed the suspicion which his recognition of the visitor had suggested. 

 "We're sorry, of course," purred the agent, who had tried to break the unwelcome news to the old man as easily as possible.  "But, of course, you know that you held the place on the distinct understanding that we should take possession at will." 

 "I ain't denying that, Mr. Blake," admitted Tyke.  "There's isn't anything underhand or wrong about what you're doing. I kept on here with my eyes wide open and I'm ready to take my medicine. But all the same, it comes as a shock. I'd hoped to hold on to the old craft as long as I lived." 

 "I wish you could, both for your sake and ours," returned Blake.  "We haven't a tenant anywhere who pays his rent more promptly and bothers us less about repairs. But the trustees of the estate have had an offer from parties who want to put up a more modern building on this site, and it was too good to decline." 

 "When are they going to start?" asked Drew. 

 "They're in something of a hurry," replied the agent.  "You see this is the right time of the year for construction work, and they want to have the foundations laid by fall." 

 "It's only a matter of days then before we have to find another place?" went on Drew. 

 "Oh, I should hardly say that," replied Blake, soothingly.  "You know how those things are. They'll have a lot to do in the way of plans and contracts before they get down to the actual work of building. Still," he went on, more cautiously, 

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