"But I don't care to know them," says Mortimer. "I haven't spoken to a soul, and don't intend to. They're not my kind, you see."

"Are you boastin', or complainin'?" says I. "Anyway, you're in for a lonesome time. What do you do evenin's?"

"Walk around until I'm tired, that's all," says he.

"That's excitin'--I don't think," says I.

Next he branches off on Miller, and starts tellin' me what a deep and lastin' grouch he'd acc.u.mulated against his boss. But I ain't encouragin' any hammer play of that kind.

"Stow it, Morty," says I. "I'm wise to all that. Besides, you ought to know you can't hold a job and come floatin' in at any old hour. No wonder you got in Dutch with him! Say, is this your first stab at real work?"

He admits that it is, and when I gets him to describe how he's been killin' time when he wa'n't in college it develops that one of his princ.i.p.al playthings has been a six-cylinder roadster,--mile-a-minute brand, mostly engine and gastank, with just s.p.a.ce enough left for the driver to snuggle in among the levers on the small of his back.

"I've had her up to sixty-five an hour on some of those Rhode Island oiled stretches," says Mortimer.

"I expect," says I. "And what was it you hit last?"

"Eh?" says he. "Oh, I see! A milk wagon. Rather stiff damages they got out of us, with the hospital and doctor's bills and all that. But it was more the way I was roasted by the blamed newspapers that made Father so sore. Then my being canned from college soon after--well, that finished it. So he sends Mother and Sis off to Europe, goes on a business trip to California himself, closes the house, and chucks me into this job."

"Kind of poor trainin' for it, I'll admit," says I. "But buck up, Morty; we'll do our best."

"We?" says he, liftin' his eyebrows.

"Uh-huh," says I. "Me and you."

"What's it got to do with you? I'd like to know!" he demands.

"I've been retained," says I. "Never you mind how, but I'm here to pa.s.s out the friendly shove, coach you along, see that you make good."

"Well, I like your nerve!" says he, stoppin' short as we're crossin'

Broadway. "A young mucker like you help me make good! Say, that's rich, that is! Huh! But why don't you? Come ahead with it, now, if you're such an expert!"

It was a dare, all right. And for a minute there we looked each other over scornful, until I decides that I'll carry on the friend act if I have to risk gettin' my head punched.

"First off, Mortimer," says I, "forgettin' what a great man you are so long as Father's payin' the bills, let's figure on just what your standin' is now. You're a b.u.m bond clerk, on the ragged edge of bein'

fired, ain't you?"

He winces some at that; but he still has a comeback. "If it wasn't for that bonehead Miller, I'd get on," he growls.

"Bah!" says I. "He's only layin' down the rules of the game; so it's up to you to follow 'em."

"But he's unreasonable," whines Mortimer. "He snoops around after me, finds fault with everything I do, and fines me for being a little late mornings."

I takes a long breath and swallows hard. Next I tries to strike the saintly pose, and then I unreels the copybook dope just like I believed it myself.

"He does, eh?" says I. "Then beat him to it. Don't be late. Show up at eight-thirty instead of nine. That extra half-hour ain't goin' to kill you. Be the last to quit too. Play up to Miller. Do things the way he wants 'em done, even if you have to do 'em over a dozen times.

And use your bean."

"But it's petty, insignificant work," says Mortimer.

"All the worse for you if you can't swing it," says I. "See here, now--how are you goin' to feel afterwards if you've always got to look back on the fact that you begun by fallin' down on a twelve-dollar job?"

Must have got Mortimer in the short ribs, that last shot; for he walks all the rest of the way back to the Corrugated without sayin' a word.

Then, just as we gets into the elevator, he unloosens.

"I don't believe it will do any good to try," says he; "but I've a mind to give it a whirl."

I didn't say so, but that was the first thing we'd agreed on that day.

So that night I has to send off a report which reads like this:

Mortimer's health O. K.; disposition ragged; business prospects punk.

Hoping you are the same,

TORCHY.

It's a wonder Mortimer didn't have mental indigestion, with all that load of gilt-edged advice on his mind, and I wa'n't lookin' for him to lug it much further'n the door; but, if you'll believe me, he seems to take it serious. Every mornin' after that I finds his hat on the hook when I come in, and whenever I gets a glimpse of him durin' the day he has his coat off and is makin' a noise like the busy bee. At this it takes some time before he makes an impression on Miller; but fin'lly Morty comes out to me with a bulletin that seems to tickle him all over.

"What do you know?" says he. "When Miller was looking over some of my work to-day he breaks out with, 'Very good, Upton. Keep it up.'"

"Well, I expect you told him to chase himself, eh?" says I.

"No," says Mortimer. "I sprung that new scheme of mine for filing the back records, and perhaps he's going to adopt it."

"Think of that!" says I. "Say, you keep on, and you'll be presented with that job for life. But, honest, you don't find Miller such a fish, do you?"

"Oh, I guess he's all right in his way," says Mortimer.

"Then brace yourself, Morty," says I, "while I slip you some more golden words. Tackle that boardin' house bunch of yours. Ah, hold your breath while you're doin' it, if you want to, and spray yourself afterwards with disinfectant, but see if you can't learn to mix in."

"But why?" says he. "I can't see the use."

"Say, for the love of Pete," says I, "ain't it hard enough for me to press out all this wise dope without drawin' diagrams? I don't know why, only you should. Go on now, take it from me."

Maybe it was followin' my hunch, or maybe there wa'n't anything else for him to do, but blamed if this didn't work too. Inside of two weeks he gives me the whole tale, one day as we're sittin' in the armchairs at the dairy lunch.

"Remember my telling you about the fellow who wore the outing shirt?"

says he. "Well, say, he's quite a chap, you know. He's from some little town out in Wyoming, and he's on here trying to be a cartoonist--runs a hoisting engine day times and goes to an art school evenings. How's that, eh?"

"Sounds batty," says I. "There's most as many would-be cartoonists as there are nutty ones tryin' to write plays for Belasco."

"But this Blake's going to get there," says Mortimer. "I was up in his room Sunday, and he showed me some of his work. Clever stuff, a lot of it. He's landed a couple of things already. Then there's old man McQuade, the one with the whiskers. Say, he's been all over the world,--Siberia, Africa, j.a.pan, South America. Used to be selling agent for a mill supply firm. He has all his savings invested in an Egyptian cotton plantation that hasn't begun to pay yet, but he thinks it will soon. You ought to hear the yarns he can spin, though!"

"So-o-o?" says I.

"But Aronwitz is the fellow I'm traveling' around with most just now,"