Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 119: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SOAP AND the Wilson Company, in Chicago, and un- doubtedly you'll get the job. You'll be right on the inside, and with your knowl- edge of the business details it will be no task at all for you to find out how they make their Violette, what it costs them, how much they’re going to spend on adver- tising, and all that. I want you to start right away. You can take the rest of the week off, and meanwhile Ill wire Wilson . to send me the letters you'll need. Then you can apply for the job Monday, and start to work right off. It oughtn’t to take you more than a couple of months, and then there will be something good waiting for you here. That’s all, I guess. How’s Dor- othy and the baby?” Little old Denny, who hadn’t said a word so far, gulped and nodded. ' “'Phey’re all right, thanks. all right. But—” “Good! Very well—this is Tuesday. Have a good time, and come in early Mon- day morning. Fl have the Wilson letters for you.” Little old Denny did not mistake the finality of his dismissal. Mechanically he rose and walked to the door. There, for a barely perceptible moment, he hesitated, ‘groping to express a doubt that was grow- img within him. He half turned, saw that Judson was again buried in his correspond- ence, and then faltered out. “Well, how’s it feel to be a partner?” asked Chisholm as he returned to his desk. But Denriy was too preoccupied either to respond or to see red. For an hour thereafter he blinked unseeingly at the work before him. <A thunderbolt had struck him ‘—his placid, methodical mind was a chaos ef confusion. Dorothy, the baby, the peremptory old man, the price of soap, the secret of Violette, something good waiting for him when he came back, four days’ vacation, a grave doubt, a graver fear— persons and things, tangible and intangible, sped confusingly through his mind. Somehow he got through the morning, although he did not get through his work. At noon he drifted imconspicuously out to lurich, from sheer force of habit. As was ‘his ‘custem, he went to one of those con- venient buffet lunch rooms which are rather Yes, they’re tte es te ee iw + ee ee “a4 st hr oS Se ‘Re ee - an wal plentiful in lower Manhattan, and where the amount of one’s check depends entirely upon one’s self, | He took his place on a stool before a counter and ordered his meal. From the menu before him he knew that it weuld cost thirty-five cents, which was what he usually spent for lunch. Beside him sat a round-faced, heavy man in a black and white check suit. Absentmindedly, Denny observed the meal the other man ordered, and in his arithmetical habit calculated its cost at eighty cents. In his confused state of mind this meant nothing at all to Denny, but when he left the lunch room he saw the other man passing the checker just ahead of him. “ Thirty-five cents,” said he who had eat- en an eighty-cent lunch. Denny, next in line, blinked and stam- mered as the check girl waited for him to state what his own meal had cost. “ Eighty cents,” he got out at last, and then, realizing the mistake he had made, went on, afraid to correct it. He paid for the round-faced man’s meal, and heard the forty-five cents for which he had received no value clink into the cash- ier’s-drawer. A sudden rage possessed him, and he looked dewnright belligerent as he made his way to the street, giving the round-faced man, who had stepped to light an expensive cigar, a glance of bitter con- tempt. How any one could be mean enough to take advantage of an honor system such as the restaurant used Denny could not un- derstand. He could have excused it, had. the man been in need. But he wasn’t; he fairly exuded prosperity, and except for dire need there was no excuse for dis- honesty. He despised the men who would resort to it; he didn’t envy them what they gamed by it. He stopped suddenly. His confusion of the morning left him.. Doubt and fear were forgotten in a swift realization of what his employer had asked him to do. He hur- ried back to the office, his jaw tense, his chin out, leaning forward a trifle in his eagerness to follow the path his conscience bade him take. Ames Judson frequently lunched in his effice. When the little old Denny burst in Comichoolks eon mi