Project Gutenberg's The Efficiency Expert, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Title: The Efficiency Expert

Official Release Date: October, 2002 [Etext #3475] [Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule] [The actual date this file first posted = 05/09/01]

Language: English

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THE EFFICIENCY EXPERT

CHAPTER I.

JIMMY TORRANCE, JR.

His football triumphs were in the past, his continued baseball successes a foregone conclusion--if he won to-night his cup of happiness, and an unassailably dominant position among his fellows, would be assured, leaving nothing more, in so far as Jimmy reasoned, to be desired from four years attendance at one of America's oldest and most famous universities.

The boxing contest, as the faculty members of the athletic committee preferred to call it, was, from the tap of the gong, as pretty a two-fisted scrap as ever any aggregation of low-browed fight fans witnessed. The details of this gory contest, while interesting, have no particular bearing upon the development of this tale. What interests us is the outcome, which occurred in the middle of a very bloody fourth round, in which Jimmy Torrance scored a clean knock-out.

"I wish," mused Jimmy, "that I could have got to the bird who invented mathematics before he inflicted all this unnecessary anguish upon an already unhappy world. In about three rounds I could have saved thousands from the sorrow which I feel every time I open this blooming book."

"Hello, Kid!" cried Jimmy. "What's new?"

"Hell!" muttered Jimmy feelingly. "I don't know what Whiskers wants with me, but he never wants to see anybody about anything pleasant."

"That's why they are profs." explained Jimmy. "There are two kinds of people in this world--human beings and profs. When does he want me?"

Jimmy arose and put on his hat and coat. "Good-by, Kid," he said. "Pray for me, and leave me one cigarette to smoke when I get back." and, grinning, he left the room.

"Mr. Torrance," he said, sighing, "it has been my painful duty on more than one occasion to call your attention to the uniformly low average of your academic standing. At the earnest solicitation of the faculty members of the athletic committee, I have been influenced, against my better judgment, to temporize with an utterly insufferable condition.

If they had sentenced Jimmy to be shot at sunrise the blow could scarcely have been more stunning than that which followed the realization that he was not to be permitted to round out his fourth successful season at first base. But if Jimmy was momentarily stunned he gave no outward indication of the fact, and in the brief interval of silence following the president's ultimatum his alert mind functioned with the rapidity which it had often shown upon the gridiron, the diamond, and the squared circle.

And then it was that he raised his eyes to those of the president.

And so Whiskers, who was much more human than the student body gave him credit for being, and was, in the bargain, a good judge of boys, gave Jimmy another chance on his own terms, and the university's heavyweight champion returned to his room filled with determination to make good at the eleventh hour.

"Well?" they inquired as he entered.

"Non-essential!" gasped one of his visitors, letting his eyes wander over the walls of Jimmy's study, whereon were nailed, pinned or hung countless framed and unframed pictures of non-essential creations.

"Go on," said Jimmy; "I am not interested," and the boys left him to his "beloved" books.

CHAPTER II.

JIMMY WILL ACCEPT A POSITION.

To his fellows, as well as to himself, he had been a great success--the success of the university--and he and they saw in the future only continued success in whatever vocation he decided to honor with his presence. It was in a mental attitude that had become almost habitual with him, and which was superinduced by these influences, that Jimmy approached the new life that was opening before him. For a while he would play, but in the fall it was his firm intention to settle down to some serious occupation, and it was in this attitude that he opened a letter from his father--the first that he had received since his graduation.

Dear Jim

To be an entirely orthodox father I should raise merry hell about your debts and utter inutility, at the same time disinheriting you, but instead I am going to urge you to come home and run in debt here where the cost of living is not so high as in the East--meanwhile praying that your awakening may come while I am on earth to rejoice.

For a long time the boy sat looking at the letter before him. He reread it once, twice, three times, and with each reading the film of unconscious egotism that had blinded him to his own shortcomings gradually became less opaque, until finally he saw himself as his father must see him. He had come to college for the purpose of fitting himself to succeed in some particular way in the stern battle of life which must follow his graduation; for, though his father had ample means to support him in insolence, Jimmy had never even momentarily considered such an eventuality.

But in the last few minutes there had dawned upon him the realization that none of these accomplishments was greatly in demand in the business world. Jimmy spent a very blue and unhappy hour, and then slowly his natural optimism reasserted itself, and with it came the realization of his youth and strength and inherent ability, which, without egotism, he might claim.

And so he sat down and wrote his father this reply:

I have your letter and check. You may not believe it, but the former is worth more to me than the latter. Not, however, that I spurn the check, which it was just like you to send without a lot of grumbling and reproaches, even if I do deserve them.

Tell mother that I will write her in a day or two, probably from Chicago, as I have always had an idea that that was one burg where I could make good.

Your affectionate SON.

Jimmy had many friends in Chicago with whom, upon the occasion of numerous previous visits to the Western metropolis, he had spent many hilarious and expensive hours, but now he had come upon the serious business of life, and there moved within him a strong determination to win financial success without recourse to the influence of rich and powerful acquaintances.

And so Jimmy, having had plenty of opportunity to commune with himself during the journey from New York, was confident that there were many opportunities awaiting him in Chicago. He remembered distinctly of having read somewhere that the growing need of big business concerns was competent executive material--that there were fewer big men than there were big jobs--and that if such was the case all that remained to be done was to connect himself with the particular big job that suited him.

And so he decided the wisest plan would be to insert an ad in the "Situations Wanted" column, and then from the replies select those which most appealed to him; in other words, he would choose from the cream of those who desired the services of such a man as himself rather than risk the chance of obtaining a less profitable position through undue haste in seizing upon the first opening advertised.

Jimmy felt very important as he passed through the massive doorway into the great general offices of the newspaper. Of course, he didn't exactly expect that he would be ushered into the presence of the president or business manager, or that even the advertising manager would necessarily have to pass upon his copy, but there was within him a certain sensation that at that instant something was transpiring that in later years would be a matter of great moment, and he was really very sorry for the publishers of the newspaper that they did not know who it was who was inserting an ad in their Situations Wanted column.

"That bird has a regular poker-face," mused Jimmy; "never batted an eye," and paying for his ad he pocketed the change and walked out.

"Of course, the truth of the matter is that there are probably tens of thousands of such positions, but to be conservative I will assume that there are only one thousand, and reducing it still further to almost an absurdity, I will figure that only ten per cent of those reply to my advertisement. In other words, at the lowest possible estimate I should have one hundred replies on the first day. I knew it was foolish to run it for three days, but the fellow insisted that that was the proper way to do, as I got a lower rate.

CHAPTER III.

THE LIZARD.

"There will be plenty of time," he thought, "for amusement after I have gotten a good grasp of my new duties." Jimmy elected to walk from the theater to his hotel, and as he was turning the corner from Randolph into La Salle a young man jostled him. An instant later the stranger was upon his knees, his wrist doubled suddenly backward and very close to the breaking-point.

"Pardon me," replied Jimmy: "you got your hand in the wrong pocket. I suppose you meant to put it in your own, but you didn't."

Now, such a tableau as Jimmy and his new acquaintance formed cannot be staged at the corner of Randolph and La Salle beneath an arc light, even at midnight, without attracting attention. And so it was that before Jimmy realized it a dozen curious pedestrians were approaching them from different directions, and a burly blue-coated figure was shouldering his way forward.

"I ain't done nuthin'," muttered the man.

"What's all the excitement about?" asked the latter. "My friend and I have done nothing."

"Well, I'll admit," replied Jimmy, "that possibly I haven't known him long enough to presume to claim any close friendship, but there's no telling what time may develop."

"Of course not," replied Jimmy. "Why should he be pinched?"

"G'wan wid yez," he yelled after him, "and if I see ye on this beat again I'll run yez in. An' you"--he turned upon Jimmy--"ye'd betther be on your way--and not be afther makin' up with ivery dip ye meet."

After the officer had helped himself and condescended to relax his stern features into the semblance of a smile the young man bid him good night and resumed his way toward the hotel.

"What do you know about that?" he mused. "And I thought I was a wise guy."

"Send him up," said Jimmy, wondering who it might be, since he was sure that no one knew of his presence in the city. He tried to connect the call in some way with his advertisement, but inasmuch as that had been inserted blind he felt that there could be no possible connection between that and his caller.

"Miss anything?" he asked.

"Here it is," said the visitor, laying the other's watch upon the table.

"Oh, I don't know," replied the other. "I guess it's because you're a white guy. O'Donnell has been trying to get something on me for the last year. He's got it in for me--I wouldn't cough every time the big stiff seen me."

"Naw," said the other; "I gotta be goin'."

The other sank noiselessly into a chair. "All right, bo," he said.

"No, thanks," declined the visitor. "I'd rather have a coffin-nail," which Jimmy forthwith furnished.

The other smiled and, as before, with his lips alone.

"How much of your time do you have to put in at your occupation to make a living?" asked Jimmy.

"You confine yourself," asked Jimmy, "to--er--ah--pocket-picking solely?"

"Meaning?" asked Jimmy.

"Box cracked?" repeated Jimmy. "An ice-box or a hot box?"

"Oh," said Jimmy, "if I ever want any one to break into a safe, come to you, huh?"

"All right," said Jimmy, laughing, "I'll call on you. That the only name you got, Mr. Lizard?"

"Goin' to crack a box?" asked Jimmy.

"Wait a second," said Jimmy. "What would you have gotten on this watch of mine?"

Jimmy reached into his pocket and drew forth a roll of bills. "Here," he said, handing the other two tens.

"Come on--take it," said Jimmy. "I may want a box cracked some day."

"I should think," said Jimmy, "that a man of your ability could earn a living by less precarious methods." "You would think so," replied the Lizard. "I've tried two or three times to go straight. Wore out my shoes looking for a job. Never landed anything that paid me more than ten bucks per, and worked nine or ten hours a day, and half the time I couldn't get that."

"Naw," said the Lizard; "dat's all bunk. De fellows that couldn't even float down a sewer straight pull dat. Once in a while dey get it in for some guy, but dey're glad enough to leave us alone if we leave dem alone. I worked four hours to-day, maybe six before I get through, and I'll stand a chance of makin' all the way from fifty dollars to five thousand. Suppose I was drivin' a milk-wagon, gettin' up at t'ree o'clock in the mornin' and workin' like hell--how much would I get out of dat? Expectin' every minute some one was goin' tuh fire me. Nuthin' doin'--dey can't nobody fire me now. I'm my own boss."

"Tanks," said the latter. "If you don't want a box cracked any sooner than I want a job, the chances are we will never meet again. So-long," and he was gone as noiselessly as he had come.

WANTED--By College Graduate--Position as General Manager of Large Business where ability, energy and experience will be appreciated. Address 263-S, Tribune Office.

By a simple system of reasoning he deduced that ten o'clock would be none too early to expect some returns from his ad, and therefore at ten promptly he presented himself at the Want Ad Department in the Tribune office.

"Whew!" thought Jimmy. "I never would have guessed that I would receive a bunch like that so early in the morning." But then, as he saw the clerk running through them one by one, he realized that they were not all for him, and as the young man ran through them Jimmy's spirits dropped a notch with each letter that was passed over without being thrown out to him, until, when the last letter had passed beneath the scrutiny of the clerk, and the advertiser realized that he had received no replies, he was quite sure that there was some error.

"Are you sure you looked in the right compartment?" asked Jimmy.

Jimmy pocketed his slip and walked from the office. "This town is slower than I thought it was," he mused. "'I guess they do need some live wires here to manage their business."

"Nothing for you," he said. "I distributed all the stuff myself since you were in last."

"Are you sure," he asked the clerk, "that my replies haven't been sidetracked somewhere? I have seen people taking letters away from here all day, and that bird there just walked off with a fistful."

"A position," replied Jimmy.

CHAPTER IV.

JIMMY HUNTS A JOB.

With the close of the fourth day, and no reply, Jimmy was thoroughly exasperated. The kindly clerk, who by this time had taken a personal interest in this steadiest of customers, suggested that Jimmy try applying for positions advertised in the Help Wanted column, and this he decided to do.

Neither of these were precisely what Jimmy had hoped for, his preference really being for the general management of an automobile manufactory or possibly something in the airplane line. Sash, door and blind sounded extremely prosaic and uninteresting to Mr. Torrance. The mail-order proposition, while possibly more interesting, struck him as being too trifling and unimportant.

And so, calling a taxi, he drove out onto the west side where, in a dingy and squalid neighborhood, the taxi stopped in front of a grimy unpainted three-story brick building, from which a great deal of noise and dust were issuing. Jimmy found the office on the second floor, after ascending a narrow, dark, and dirty stairway. Jimmy's experience of manufacturing plants was extremely limited, but he needed no experience as he entered the room to see that he was in a busy office of a busy plant. Everything about the office was plain and rather dingy, but there were a great many file clerks and typists and considerable bustling about.

He had been told that Mr. Brown would see him, and rapping upon the door bearing that name he was bid to enter, and a moment later found himself in the presence of a middle-aged man whose every gesture and movement was charged with suppressed nerve energy.

"Well?" he snapped, as Jimmy approached him.

The man sized him up quickly from head to foot. His eyes narrowed and his brows contracted.

"I have the necessary ability," replied Jimmy, "to manage your business."

"I have never had any experience in the sash, door and blind business," replied Jimmy. "I didn't come here to make sash, doors and blinds. I came here to manage your business."

"I assumed," said Jimmy, "that what you wanted in a general manager was executive ability, and that's what I have."

Jimmy did not forget to close the door. As he walked the length of the interminable room between rows of desks, before which were seated young men and young women, all of whom Jimmy thought were staring at him, he could feel the deep crimson burning upward from his collar to the roots of his hair.

It was not until the next day that Jimmy had sufficiently reestablished his self-confidence to permit him to seek out the party who wished a mail-order manager, and while in this instance he met with very pleasant and gentlemanly treatment, his application was no less definitely turned down.

He also learned something else which surprised him greatly: that rather than being an aid to his securing employment, his college education was a drawback, several men telling him bluntly that they had no vacancies for rah-rah boys.

"I'll be damned if I'm going to quit," he said to himself, "if I have to turn street-sweeper. There must be some job here in the city that I am capable of filling, and I'm pretty sure that I can at least get a job as office-boy."

"What experience have you had?" he asked.

"Do I have to have experience to be an office-boy?" he asked.

Jimmy rose. "Good day," he said, and walked out.

Sitting in his room that night he took account of his assets and his liabilities. His room rent was paid until Saturday and this was Thursday, and in his pocket were one dollar and sixty cents. Opening his trunk, he drew forth a sheet of paper and an envelope, and, clearing the top of the rickety little table which stood at the head of his bed, he sat down on the soiled counterpane and wrote a letter.

I guess I'm through, I have tried and failed. It is hard to admit it, but I guess I'll have to. If you will send me the price I'll come home. With love, Jim

Slowly he folded the letter and inserted it in the envelope, his face mirroring an utter dejection such as Jimmy Torrance had never before experienced in his life.

Taking his hat, he walked down the creaking stairway, with its threadbare carpet, and out onto the street to post his letter.

CHAPTER V.

Miss Elizabeth Compton sat in the dimly lighted library upon a deep-cushioned, tapestried sofa. She was not alone, yet although there were many comfortable chairs in the large room, and the sofa was an exceptionally long one, she and her companion occupied but little more space than would have comfortably accommodated a single individual.

"But I can't help it, dear. It seems so absolutely wonderful! I can't believe it--that you are really mine."

"There are a lot of formalities and bridesmaids and ministers and things that have got to be taken into consideration before I am yours. And anyway there is no necessity for mussing me up so. You might as well know now as later that I utterly loathe this cave-man stuff. And really, Harold, there is nothing about your appearance that suggests a cave-man, which is probably one reason that I like you."

"I have to like you in order to love you, don't I?" she parried. "And one certainly has to like the man she is going to marry."

"I prefer," explained the girl, "to be loved decorously. I do not care to be pawed or clawed or crumpled. After we have been married for fifteen or twenty years and are really well acquainted--"

"Don't be silly, Harold," she retorted. "You have kissed me so much now that my hair is all down, and my face must be a sight. Lips are what you are supposed to kiss with--you don't have to kiss with your hands."

"Not at all," rejoined Miss Compton. "We should never forget the stratum of society to which we belong, and what we owe to the maintenance of the position we hold. My father has always impressed upon me the fact that gentlemen or gentlewomen are always gentle-folk under any and all circumstances and conditions. I distinctly recall his remark about one of his friends, whom he greatly admired, to this effect: that he always got drunk like a gentleman. Therefore we should do everything as gentle-folk should do things, and when we make love we should make love like gentlefolk, and not like hod-carriers or cavemen."

It was a little after nine o'clock when Harold Bince arose to leave.

"I thought we should always do the things that gentle-folk should do," said Bince, grinning, after being seated safely in the car. They had turned out of the driveway into Lincoln Parkway.

"Is it perfectly proper for young ladies to drive around the streets of a big city alone after dark?"

"You will be after you leave me at home."

"And I'm glad that you are!" exclaimed Bince fervently. "I wouldn't love you if you were like the ordinary run."

"Darn!" exclaimed Miss Elizabeth Compton as she drew in beside the curb and stopped. Although she knew perfectly well that one of the tires was punctured, she got out and walked around in front as though in search of the cause of the disturbance, and sure enough, there it was, flat as a pancake, the left front tire.

"Can I help you any?" he asked.

"It looks like a new casing," he said. "It would be too bad to ruin it. If you have a spare I will be very glad to change it for you," and without waiting for her acquiescence he stripped off his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and dove under the seat for the jack.

She could not help but notice that his clothes were rather badly wrinkled and that his shoes were dusty and well worn; for when he kneeled in the street to operate the jack the sole of one shoe was revealed beneath the light of an adjacent arc, and she saw that it was badly worn. Evidently he was a poor young man.

During the operation of changing the wheel the young man had a good opportunity to appraise the face and figure of the girl, both of which he found entirely to his liking, and when finally she started off, after thanking him, he stood upon the curb watching the car until it disappeared from view.

It might have been the girl, and again it might not have been. He could not tell. Possibly it was the simple little act of refusing the tip she had proffered him. It might have been any one of a dozen little different things, or an accumulation of them all, that had brought back a sudden flood of the old self-confidence and optimism.

And he did. In the department store to the general managership of whose mail-order department he had aspired Jimmy secured a position in the hosiery department at ten dollars a week. The department buyer who had interviewed him asked him what experience he had had with ladies' hosiery.

"For whom did you work?"

So they gave Jimmy a trial in a new section of the hosiery department, wherein he was the only male clerk. The buyer had discovered that there was a sufficient proportion of male customers, many of whom displayed evident embarrassment in purchasing hosiery from young ladies, to warrant putting a man clerk in one of the sections for this class of trade.

Possibly if Jimmy had been almost any other type of man from what he was, his presence would not have been so flamboyantly noticeable in a hosiery department. His stature, his features, and his bronzed skin, that had lost nothing of its bronze in his month's search for work through the hot summer streets of a big city, were as utterly out of place as would have been the salient characteristics of a chorus-girl in a blacksmith-shop.

"It is a job, however," he thought, "and ten dollars is better than nothing. I can hang onto it until something better turns up."

Jimmy saw little of his fellow roomers. A strange, drab lot he thought them from the occasional glimpses he had had in passings upon the dark stairway and in the gloomy halls. They appeared to be quiet, inoffensive sort of folk, occupied entirely with their own affairs. He had made no friends in the place, not even an acquaintance, nor did he care to. What leisure time he had he devoted to what he now had come to consider as his life work--the answering of blind ads in the Help Wanted columns of one morning and one evening paper--the two mediums which seemed to carry the bulk of such advertising.

But he soon discovered that nine-tenths of the positions were filled before he arrived, and that in the few cases where they were not he not only failed of employment, but was usually so delayed that he was late in returning to work after noon.

And so another month dragged by slowly. His work in the department store disgusted him. It seemed such a silly, futile occupation for a full-grown man, and he was always fearful that the sister or sweetheart or mother of some of his Chicago friends would find him there behind the counter in the hosiery section.

He rather fancied the automobile accessories line, but the buyer was perfectly satisfied with Jimmy's sales record, and would do nothing to assist in the change. The university heavyweight champion had reached a point where he loathed but one thing more than he did silk hosiery, and that one thing was himself.

CHAPTER VI.

Mason Compton, president and general manager, sat in his private office in the works of the International Machine Company, chewing upon an unlighted cigar and occasionally running his fingers through his iron-gray hair as he compared and recompared two statements which lay upon the desk before him.

"I can't understand these statements, Harold," said Compton. "Here is one for August of last year and this is this August's statement of costs. We never had a better month in the history of this organization than last month, and yet our profits are not commensurate with the volume of business that we did. That's the reason I sent for these cost statements and have compared them, and I find that our costs have increased out of all proportions to what is warranted. How do you account for it?"

"I know," agreed Compton, "that that is true to some measure. Both labor and raw materials have advanced, but we have advanced our prices correspondingly. In some instances it seems to me that our advance in prices, particularly on our specialties, should have given us even a handsomer profit over the increased cost of production than we formerly received.

"I never had a son, and after Elizabeth's mother died I have lived in the hope somehow that she would marry the sort of chap who would really take the place of such a son as every man dreams of--some one who will take his place and carry on his work when he is ready to lay aside his tools. I liked your father, Harold. He was one of the best friends that I ever had, and I can tell you now what I couldn't have you a month ago: that when I employed you and put you in this position it was with the hope that eventually you would fill the place in my business and in my home of the son I never had."

"I don't know," replied the older man. "I have tried never to say anything to influence her. Years ago when she was younger we used to talk about it half jokingly and shortly after you told me of your engagement she remarked to me one day that she was happy, for she knew you were going to be the sort of son I had wanted.

"And so I want you to get thoroughly into the harness as soon as possible, that I may turn over the entire management you. But I can't do it, Harold, while the profits are diminishing."

"I'll do my best, sir," he said, smiling. "Of course I realize, as you must, that I have tried to learn a great deal in a short time. I think I have reached a point now where I pretty thoroughly grasp the possibilities and requirements of my work, and I am sure that from now on you will note a decided change for the better on the right side of the ledger."

And then there came a light tap on the door, which opened immediately before any summons to enter had been given, and Elizabeth Compton entered, followed by another young woman.

"And what's that?" asked Elizabeth.

They all laughed. "You're a regular Sherlock Holmes!" exclaimed Harriet Holden.

"How much have you?" asked Elizabeth. "I am utterly broke."

The young man started to the door.

They entered Bince's office, which adjoined Compton's.

She told him how much she wanted, and he was back shortly with the currency.

"He will simply have to be lifted completely out of it, or be will stay here and die in the harness. Everything is running splendidly, and now that I have a good grasp of the business I can handle it. Don't you suppose you could persuade him to take a trip? I know that he wants to travel. He has told me so several times, and if he could get away from here this fall and stay away for a year, if possible, it would make a new man of him. I am really very much worried about him, and while I hate to worry you I feel that you are the only person who can influence him and that something ought to be done and done at once."

"That's the side of him that he lets you see," replied the man. "His gaiety is all forced. If you could see him after you leave you would realize that he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Your father is not an old man in years, but he has placed a constant surtax on his nervous system for the last twenty-five years without a let-up, and it doesn't make any difference how good a machine may be it is going to wear out some day, and the better the machine the more complete will be the wreck when the final break occurs."

"You really believe it is as bad as that, Harold?" she asked.

The girl rose slowly from the chair. "I will try and persuade him to see Dr. Earle."

"Well," she said at last, with a sigh, "I will talk to him and see if I can't persuade him to take a trip. He has always wanted to visit Japan and China."

She pushed him gently away.

CHAPTER VII.

JOBLESS AGAIN.

Jimmy Torrance was arranging his stock, fully nine-tenths of which he could have sworn he had just shown an elderly spinster who had taken at least half an hour of his time and then left without making a purchase. His back was toward his counter when his attention was attracted by a feminine voice asking if he was busy. As he turned about he recognized her instantly--the girl for whom he had changed a wheel a month before and who unconsciously had infused new ambition into his blood and saved him, temporarily at least, from becoming a quitter.

"And the girl with her!" exclaimed Jimmy mentally. "She was no slouch either. They are the two best-looking girls I have seen in this town, notwithstanding the fact that whether one likes Chicago or not he's got to admit that there are more pretty girls here than in any other city in the country.

While Jimmy had always been hugely disgusted with his position, the sight of the girl seemed to have suddenly crystallized all those weeks of self-contempt into a sudden almost mad desire to escape what he considered his degrading and effeminating surroundings. One must bear with Jimmy and judge him leniently, for after all, notwithstanding his college diploma and physique, he was still but a boy and so while it is difficult for a mature and sober judgment to countenance his next step, if one can look back a few years to his own youth he can at least find extenuating circumstances surrounding Jimmy's seeming foolishness.

"Well, Mr. Torrance," asked that gentleman, "what can I do for you?"

"Quit!"' exclaimed the buyer. "Why, what's wrong? Isn't everything perfectly satisfactory? You have never complained to me."

The buyer raised his eyebrows. "Ah! he said. "With--" and he named their closest competitor.

The other smiled. "If an increase in salary," he suggested, "would influence you, I had intended to tell you that I would take care of you beginning next week. I thought of making it fifteen dollars," and with that unanswerable argument for Jimmy's continued service the buyer sat back and folded his bands.

"Oh, very well," said the buyer aggrievedly, "but if you leave me this way you will be unable to refer to the house."

"There," exclaimed Elizabeth Compton, as she sank back on the cushions of her car.

"I have placed him."

"That nice-looking young person who waited on us in the hosiery section."

"I have never met him," corrected Elizabeth, accenting the "met." "He changed a wheel on the roadster several weeks ago one evening after I had taken Harold down to the club. And he was very nice about it. I should say that he is a gentleman, although his clothes were pretty badly worn."

"My!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "He must have made an impression on some one."

"No," said Elizabeth, "and probably if he were as nice as he looks he wouldn't be there."

There came a Saturday when Jimmy, jobless and fundless, dreaded his return to the Indiana Avenue rooming-house, where he knew the landlady would be eagerly awaiting him, for he was a week in arrears in his room rent already, and had been warned he could expect no further credit.

Jimmy stood on the corner of Clark and Van Buren looking at his watch. "I hate to do it," he thought, "but the Lizard said he could get twenty for it, and twenty would give me another two weeks." And so his watch went, and two weeks later his cigarette-case and ring followed. Jimmy had never gone in much for jewelry--a fact which he now greatly lamented.

In his search for work he was still wearing his best-looking suit; the others he would dispose of; and with this plan in his mind on his return to his room that night he went to the tiny closet to make a bundle of the things which he would dispose of on the morrow, only to discover that in his absence some one had been there before him, and that there was nothing left for him to sell.

Long since there had been driven into his mind the conviction that for any practical purpose in life a higher education was as useless as the proverbial fifth wheel to the coach.

CHAPTER VIII.

BREAD FROM THE WATERS.

"I've got to eat," he soliloquized fiercely, "if I have to go out to-night and pound somebody on the head to get the price, and I'm going to do it," he concluded as the odors of cooking food came to him from a cheap restaurant which he was passing. He stopped a moment and looked into the window at the catsup bottles and sad-looking pies which the proprietor apparently seemed to think formed an artistic and attractive window display.

Jimmy looked at those in the window and then down at his own, which, though wrinkled, were infinitely better than anything on display.

When Jimmy returned to his room that night it was with a full stomach, but with the knowledge that he had practically reached the end of his rope. He had been unable to bring himself to the point of writing his father an admission of his failure, and in fact he had gone so far, and in his estimation had sunk so low, that he had definitely determined he would rather starve to death now than admit his utter inefficiency to those whose respect he most valued.

"Say, bo, what you doin' here?"

"Oh!" he exclaimed as recognition of the other dawned slowly upon him. "It's you, is it? My old and esteemed friend, the Lizard."

Jimmy grinned.

The other ascended toward him, his keen eyes appraising him from head to foot.

"Yes," replied Jimmy; "do you?"

"That's funny," said Jimmy; "I have been here about two months myself."

Jimmy flushed.

"Where's you room?" asked the Lizard.

"Sure," said the Lizard, and together the two ascended the stairs and entered Jimmy's room. Under the brighter light there the Lizard scrutinized his host.

"I sure have," said Jimmy.

"Thanks," said Jimmy.

"Nothing."

"I quit it," said Jimmy. "I've only worked a month since I've been here, and that for the munificent salary of ten dollars a week."

"I sure do," said Jimmy. "I don't know of anything 1 would rather have."

"Cracking a box?" asked Jimmy, grinning.

"Is that the usual percentage?" asked Jimmy.

Thirty per cent of fifty thousand dollars! Jimmy jingled the few pieces of silver remaining in his pocket. Fifteen thousand dollars! And here he had been walking his legs off and starving in a vain attempt to earn a few paltry dollars honestly.

"I'm taking it from an old crab who has more than he can use, and all of it he got by robbing people that didn't have any to spare. He's a big guy here. When anything big is doing the newspaper guys interview him and his name is in all the lists of subscriptions to charity--when they're going to be published in the papers. I'll bet he takes nine-tenths of his kale from women and children, and he's an honored citizen. I ain't no angel, but whatever I've taken didn't cause nobody any sufferin'--I'm a thief, bo, and I'm mighty proud of it when I think of what this other guy is."

Presently he looked up at the Lizard.

"I get you," replied the Lizard, "and while you may never wear diamonds, you'll get more pleasure out of life than I ever will, provided you don't starve to death too soon. You know, I had a hunch you would turn me down, and I'm glad you did. If you were going crooked some time I thought I'd like to have you with me. When it comes to men, I'm a pretty good picker. That's the reason I have kept out of jail so long. I either pick a square one or I work alone."

The Lizard grinned his lip grin.

"All right," said the Lizard. "When I come back I'll bring you a job of some sort. I may be back to-night, and I may not be back again for a month, and in the mean time you got to live."

"Hold on! "cried Jimmy. "Once again, nothing doing."

"But I didn't loan it to you," said Jimmy; "I gave it to you as a reward for finding my watch."

"Take it," he said; "don't be a damn fool. And now so-long! I may bring you home a job to-night, but if I don't you've got enough to live on for a couple of weeks."

"That fellow may be a thief," he soliloquized, "but whatever he is he's white. Just imagine, the only friend I've got in Chicago is a safe-blower."

CHAPTER IX.

When Elizabeth Compton broached to her father the subject of a much-needed rest and a trip to the Orient, he laughed at her. Why, girl," he cried, "I was never better in my life! Where in the world did you get this silly idea?"

"Failing!" ejaculated Compton, with a scoff. "Failing nothing! You're a pair of young idiots. I'm good for twenty years more of hard work, but, as I told Harold, I would like to quit and travel, and I shall do so just as soon as I am convinced that he can take my place."

"No, I am afraid not," replied Compton. "It is too much to expect of him, but I believe that in another year he will be able to."

"I am afraid," he said "that you don't take it seriously enough yourself, and that you failed to impress upon him the real gravity of his condition. It is really necessary that he go--he must go."

"I don't quite understand," she said, "why you should take the matter so to heart. Father is the best judge of his own condition, and, while he may need a rest, I cannot see that he is in any immediate danger." "Oh, well," replied Bince irritably, "I just wanted him to get away for his own sake. Of course, it don't mean anything to me."

"No, I'm not," he said. "There is nothing the matter with me at all."

Bince went directly to his club, where he found four other men who were evidently awaiting him.

"Oh, hell," replied Bince, "you fellows have been sitting here all evening waiting for me. You know I want to. My luck's got to change some time."

As the five men entered one of the cardrooms several of the inevitable spectators drew away from the other games and approached their table, for it was a matter of club gossip that these five played for the largest stakes of any coterie among the habitues of the card-room.

"I'm through, absolutely through," he said. "I'll be damned if I ever touch another card."

"How much of old man Compton's money did you get tonight?" asked one of the four after Bince had left the room.

Whereupon they all laughed.

"Is he paying anything at all?" asked another.

"Well, I can't carry it forever," said the first speaker. "I'm not playing here for my health," and, rising, he too left the room. Going directly to the buffet, he found Bince, as he was quite sure that he would.

"I've told you two or three times,"' replied Bince, "that I'd let you have it as soon as I could get it. I can't get you any now."

Bince paled.

"Well," replied the other, "I don't want to be nasty, but I need some money badly."

Jimmy Torrance sat a long time in thought after the Lizard left. "God!" he muttered. "I wonder what dad would say if he knew that I had come to a point where I had even momentarily considered going into partnership with a safe-blower, and that for the next two weeks I shall be compelled to subsist upon the charity of a criminal?

"It is now October, and since the first of the year I have earned forty dollars exactly. I have also received a bequest of twenty dollars, which of course is exempt. I venture to say that there is not another able-bodied adult male in the United States the making of whose income-tax schedule would be simpler than mine."

It was in the neighborhood of two o'clock the next morning that he was awakened by a gentle tapping upon the panels of his door.

"It's me bo," came the whispered reply in the unmistakable tones of the Lizard.

"What's the matter?" he whispered.

"Fine!" exclaimed Jimmy. "You're a regular fellow all right."

"As long as I can earn an honest dollar," cried Jimmy, striking a dramatic pose, "I care not what it may be."

"I ain't so sure about that," he said. "I know your kind. You're a regular gent. There is some honest jobs that you would just as soon have as the smallpox, and maybe this is one of them."

"You know Feinheimer's Cabaret."

"Well that's where I got you a job," said the Lizard.

"Waiter," was the reply.

"It ain't such a bad job," admitted the Lizard "if a guy ain't too swelled up. Some of 'em make a pretty good thing out of it, what with their tips and short changing--Oh, there are lots of little ways to get yours at Feinheimer's."

"Oh, sure," replied the Lizard; "you get the union scale."

"Go around and see him to-morrow morning. He will put you right to work."

Feinheimer's Cabaret held a unique place among the restaurants of the city. Its patrons were from all classes of society. At noon its many tables were largely filled by staid and respectable business men, but at night a certain element of the underworld claimed it as their own, and there was always a sprinkling of people of the stage, artists, literary men and politicians. It was, as a certain wit described it, a social goulash, for in addition to its regular habitues there were those few who came occasionally from the upper stratum of society in the belief that they were doing something devilish. As a matter of fact, slumming parties which began and ended at Feinheimer's were of no uncommon occurrence, and as the place was more than usually orderly it was with the greatest safety that society made excursions into the underworld of crime and vice through its medium.

CHAPTER X.

Feinheimer liked Jimmy's appearance. He was big and strong, and the fact that Feinheimer always retained one or two powerful men upon his payroll accounted in a large measure for the orderliness of his place. Occasionally one might start something at Feinheimer's, but no one was ever known to finish what he started.

And then there was Little Eva, whose real name was Edith. She was a demure looking little girl, who came in every afternoon at four o'clock for her breakfast. She usually came to Jimmy's table when it was vacant, and at four o'clock she always ate alone. Later in the evening she would come in again with a male escort, who was never twice the same.

"That's quite remarkable," said Jimmy. "I should think any one who smoked as many cigarettes and drank as much whisky as you would have perfect nerves."

"Strong?" exclaimed Jimmy. "Why, if I drank half what you do I'd be in the Washingtonian Home in a week."

"You're a funny guy," she said. "I can't quite figure you out. What are you doing here anyway?"

"Oh, go on," she cried; "I don't mean that. These other hash-slingers around here look the part. Aside from that, about the only thing they know how to do is roll a souse; but you're different."

"Oh, you don't have to tell me," said the girl. "I wasn't rubbering. I was just sort of interested in you."

She went on with her breakfast while Jimmy set up an adjoining table. Presently when he came to fill her water-glass she looked up at him again.

Jimmy looked at her in surprise. It was the first indication that he had ever had from an habitu, of Feinheimer's that there might lurk within their breasts any of the finer characteristics whose outward indices are pride and shame. He was momentarily at a loss as to what to say, and as he hesitated the girl's gaze went past him and she exclaimed:

Jimmy turned to look at the newcomer, and saw the Lizard directly behind him.

The Lizard dropped into a chair at the table with the girl, and after Jimmy had taken his order and departed for the kitchen Little Eva jerked her thumb toward his retreating figure.

"He might have a worse friend," replied the Lizard non-committally.

"He ain't got none except being on the square. It's funny," the Lizard philosophized, "but here's me with a bank roll that would choke a horse, and you probably with a stocking full of dough, and I'll bet all the money I ever had or ever expect to have if one of us could change places with that poor simp we'd do it."

"Oh, that's a long story," said the Lizard. "We room at the same place, but I knew him before that."

"How the hell did you know?" he queried.

"You're a wise guy, all right, Eva, and one thing I like about you is that you don't let anything you know hurt you."

The Lizard eyed her for a moment.

"Cut it!" exclaimed the girl. "I'm as good as you are and a damn straighter. What I get I earn, and I don't steal it."

"I ain't going to try to pull him down," said the girl. "And anyhow, when were you made his godfather?"

They talked a great deal while she breakfasted, and he learned to like the girl and to realize that she possessed two personalities. The one which he liked dominated her at breakfast; the other which he loathed guided her actions later in the evening. Neither of them ever referred to those hours of her life, and as the days passed Jimmy found himself looking forward to the hour when Little Eva would come to Feinheimer's for her breakfast.

CHAPTER XI.

It was Christmas Eve. Elizabeth Compton and Harriet Holden were completing the rounds of their friends' homes with Christmas remembrances--a custom that they had continued since childhood. The last parcel had been delivered upon the South Side, and they were now being driven north on Michigan Boulevard toward home. Elizabeth directed the chauffeur to turn over Van Buren to State, which at this season of the year was almost alive with belated Christmas shoppers and those other thousands who always seize upon the slightest pretext for a celebration.

"Isn't it wonderful," exclaimed Harriet, "what a transformation a few lights make? Who would ever think of State Street as a fairy-land? And yet, if you half close your eyes the hallucination is complete. Even the people who by daylight are shoddy and care-worn take on an appearance of romance and gaiety, and the tawdry colored lights are the scintillant gems of the garden of a fairy prince."

"I wish we didn't have to go home right away," said Harriet. "I feel like doing something devilish."

"Do something devilish?" inquired Harriet. "What, for instance?"

They both laughed. "I have it!" exclaimed Elizabeth suddenly. "We'll be utterly abandoned--we'll have supper at Feinheimer's without an escort."

"Do you dare me?" asked the other.

"If we see any one in Feinheimer's who knows us," argued Elizabeth shrewdly, "they will be just as glad to forget it as we. And anyway it will do it will do harm. I shall have David stay right outside the door so that if I call him he can come. I don't know what I would do without David. He is a sort of Rock of Ages and Gibraltar all in one."

Christmas Eve at Feinheimer's is, or was, a riot of unconfined hilarity, although the code of ethics of the place was on a higher plane than that which governed the Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve patrons of so-called respectable restaurants, where a woman is not safe from insult even though she be properly escorted, while in Feinheimer's a woman with an escort was studiously avoided by the other celebrators unless she chose to join with them. As there was only one class of women who came to Feinheimer's at night without escort, the male habitues had no difficulty in determining who they might approach and who they might not.

"What shall we take?" asked Elizabeth of Harriet. Then: "What have you that's good?" and she looked up at the waiter.

If Jimmy was schooled in self-control, Elizabeth Compton was equally so. She recognized the waiter immediately, but not even by a movement of an eyelid did she betray the fact; which may possibly be accounted for by the fact that it meant little more to her than as though she had chanced to see the same street-sweeper several times In succession, although after he had left with their order she asked Harriet if she, too, had recognized him.

"There must be something wrong with him," rejoined Elizabeth; "probably utterly inefficient."

"He doesn't look it," said Elizabeth. "He looks too utterly healthy for that. We've seen some of these drug addicts in our own set, as you may readily recall. No, I shouldn't say that he was that."

"Yes," said Elizabeth, "it is too bad. Take a man like that; with a college education he could attain almost any decree of success he chose."

The other girl tapped the floor with the toe of one boot impatiently.

Harriet looked about in the direction her companion had indicated, to see a large, overdressed man staring at them. There was a smirk on his face, and as Harriet caught his eye she saw him rise and, to her horror, realized that he was advancing toward their table.

"Hello, kiddo!" he said. "What are you going to drink?"

"All right," said the man, "what's the use of asking? There's only one thing when Steve Murray buys. Here, waiter," he yelled, pounding on the table. The nearest waiter, who chanced not to be Jimmy, who was then in the kitchen, came hurriedly forward. "Open up some wine," commanded Murray. "Come on, boys! Bring your chairs over here," he continued, addressing his companions; "let's have a little party."

"You will oblige me," she said, "by leaving our table."

"That's great!" he cried. "I guess you don't know who I am, kiddo. You won't cop off anything better in this joint than Steve Murray. Come on--let's be friends. That's a good girl," and before Elizabeth realized the man's intentions he had seized her wrist and pulled her down into his lap.

Murray was endeavoring to draw the girl's lips to his as Jimmy's hand shot between their faces and pushed that of the man away. With his free arm he encircled the girl's body and attempted to draw her from her assailant.

"Who the hell are you?" cried the labor leader, releasing the girl and rising to his feet. "Get the hell out of here, you dirty hash-slinger! Any girl in this place belongs to me if I want her. There don't only one kind come in here without an escort, or with one, either, for that matter. You get back on your job, where you belong," and the man pressed forward trying to push Jimmy aside and lay hands on Elizabeth again.

In his younger days Murray had been a boiler-maker, and he still retained most of his great strength. He was a veritable mountain of a man, and now in the throes of a berserker rage he was a formidable opponent. His face was white and his lips were drawn back tightly, exposing his teeth in a bestial snarl as he charged at Jimmy. His great arms and huge hands beat to the right and left like enormous flails, one blow from which might seemingly have felled an ox.

By this time waiters and patrons were crowding forward from all parts of the room, and Feinheimer, shrieking at the top of his voice, was endeavoring to worm his fat, toadlike body through the cordon of excited spectators. The proprietor reached the scene of carnage just in time to see Jimmy plant a lovely left on the point of Murray's jaw.

Towering above the others in the room suddenly came a big young fellow shouldering his way through the crowd, a young man in the uniform of a chauffeur. Elizabeth saw him before he discovered her.

As the chauffeur reached her side and took in the scene he jerked his head toward Jimmy. "Did any one hurt you miss?"

"Oh, that's all right," said Jimmy. "You just get out of here as quick as you can. If the police happened to look in now you might be held as a witness."

Harriet paused long enough to extend her band to Jimmy. "It was wonderfully brave of you," she said. "We could never do enough to repay you. My name is Harriet Holden," and she gave him an address on Lake Shore Drive. "If you will come Monday morning about ten o'clock," she said, "I am sure that there is something we can do for you. If you want a better position," she half suggested, "I know my father could help, although he must never know about this to-night."

Feinheimer stood as one dazed, looking down at the bulk of his friend and associate.

"He got what was coming to him," said a soft feminine voice at Jimmy's elbow. The man looked to see Little Eva standing at his side. "I didn't think anybody could do that to Murray," she continued. "Lord, but it was pretty. He's had it coming to him ever since I've known him, but the big stiff had everybody around this joint buffaloed. He got away with anything he started."

"He's my best customer," he cried, "and a bum waiter comes along and beats him up just when he is trying to have a little innocent sport on Christmas Eve. You take off your apron, young man, and get your time. I won't have no rough stuff in Feinheimer's."

"Shouldn't I wait to see if I can't do something more for Mr. Murray?" he suggested.

Jimmy laughed and took off his apron as he walked back to the servants' coat-room. As he emerged again and crossed through, the dining-room he saw that Murray had regained consciousness and was sitting at a table wiping the blood from his face with a wet napkin. As Murray's eyes fell upon his late antagonist he half rose from his chair and shook his fist at Jimmy.

"You just had me," Jimmy called back; "but it didn't seem to make you very happy."

CHAPTER XII.

UP OR DOWN?

"We seen that little mix-up in there," said one of them. "You handle your mitts like you been there before."

The two men were sizing him up.

"No," said Jimmy.

"I wouldn't mind," said Jimmy. "What is there in it?"

"Come over the day after Christmas," he was told, "and we'll give you a trial."

At ten o'clock Monday Jimmy was at Young Brophy's training quarters, for, although he had not forgotten Harriet Holden's invitation, he had never seriously considered availing himself of her offer to help him to a better position. While he had not found it difficult to accept the rough friendship and assistance of the Lizard, the idea of becoming an object of "charity," as he considered it, at the hands of a girl in the same walk of life as that to which he belonged was intolerable.

It seemed that one of the principal requisites of the position was a willingness to take punishment without attempting to inflict too much upon Young Brophy. The manager did not go into specific details as to the reason for this restriction, and Jimmy, badly in need of a job, felt no particular inclination to search too deeply for the root of the matter.

One of the sparring partners who seemed to harbor a petty grudge against Brophy finally explained the whole plan to Jimmy. Everything was to be done to carry the impression to the public through the newspapers, who were usually well represented at the training quarters, that Brophy was in the pink of condition; that he was training hard; that it was impossible to find men who could stand up to him on account of the terrific punishment he inflicted upon his sparring partners; and that the result of the fight was already a foregone conclusion; and then in the third round Young Brophy was to lie down and by reclining peacefully on his stomach for ten seconds make more money than several years of hard and conscientious work earnestly performed could ever net him.

"I see, "said Jimmy, running his fingers through his hair. "Oh, well, it's none of my business, and if the suckers want to bet their money on a prize-fight they're about due to lose it anyway."

At first it had been rather humiliating to Jimmy to take the drubbings he did at the hands of Young Brophy in the presence of the audience which usually filled the small gymnasium where the fighter was training. It was nearly always about the same crowd, however, made up of dyed-in-the-wool fans, a few newspaper men, and a sprinkling of thrill-seekers from other walks of life far removed from the prize-ring. Jimmy often noticed women among the spectators--well-dressed women, with every appearance of refinement, and there were always men of the same upper class of society.

"That's just part of the graft," said his informant. "These birds have got next to a bunch of would-be sports with more money than brains through the athletic director of--" he mentioned the name of one of the big athletic clubs--"and they been inviting 'em here to watch Brophy training. Every one of the simps will be tryin' to get money down on Brophy, and this bunch will take it all up as fast as they come.

"Oh, what the hell do we care?" said the other. "I'm goin' to make mine out of it, and you better do the same. I'm goin' to put up every cent I can borrow or steal on the other guy."

"If," thought Jimmy," this bird is of championship caliber, I might be a champion myself." For, though Young Brophy was not a champion, the newspapers had been pointing to him for time as a likely possibility for these pugilistic honors later.

There was quite a gathering that afternoon to watch Young Brophy's work-out, and rather a larger representation than usual from society's younger set. The program, which had consisted in part of shadow boxing and bag punching by Young Brophy, was to terminate with three rounds with Jimmy.

At the close of the second round Brophy landed a particularly vicious right, which dropped Jimmy to the canvas. The crowd applauded vociferously, and as the gong sounded as Jimmy was slowly rising to his feet they were all assured that it was all that had saved the young man from an even worse thrashing.

He had long since ceased to consider what the spectators might think. So far as Jimmy was concerned, they might have been so many chairs. He was merely angry at the unnecessary punishment that had been inflicted. As he sprawled in his corner he let his eyes run over the faces of the spectators directly in front of him, to whom previously be had paid no particular attention, and even now it was scarcely more than an involuntary glance; but his eyes stopped suddenly upon a face, and as recognition suddenly dawned upon him he could feel the hot blood rushing to his own. For there was the girl whom Fate had thrice before thrown in his path! Beside her he recognized the Miss Harriet Holden who had been with her the night at Feinheimer's, and with them were two young men.

Everything within Jimmy's mind turned suddenly topsyturvy. He seemed to lose all sense of proportion and all sense of value in one overpowering thought, that he must not again be humiliated in her presence.

In thirty seconds it was unquestionably apparent to every one in the room, including Young Brophy himself, that the latter was pitifully outclassed. Jimmy hit him whenever and wherever he elected to him, and he hit him hard, while Brophy, at best only a second or third rate fighter, pussy and undertrained, was not only unable to elude the blows of his adversary but equally so to land effectively himself.

Before Jimmy got dressed and out of the gymnasium he, with difficulty, escaped a half-dozen more fistic encounters, as everybody from the manager down felt that his crime deserved nothing short of capital punishment. He had absolutely wrecked a perfectly good scheme in the perfection of which several thousand dollars had been spent, and now there could not be even the possibility of a chance of their breaking even.

CHAPTER XIII.

When Jimmy got home that night he saw a light in the Lizard's room and entered.

Jimmy smiled ruefully.

"Well," said the Lizard, "you certainly are the champion boob. There you had a chance to cop off a nice bunch of coin on that fight and instead you kill it for yourself and everybody else."

"Why not?" asked the Lizard, and then be shook his head sadly. "No, I don't suppose you would. There's lots of things about you that I can't understand, and one of them is the fact that you would rather starve to death than take a little easy money off of birds that have got more than they got any business to have. Why, with your education and front we two could pull off some of the classiest stuff that this burg ever saw."

"What are you going to do now?" asked the Lizard.

"Well, I wish you luck," said the Lizard.

"Thanks," said Jimmy, "and I don't mind telling you that you're the one man I know whom I'd just as soon borrow from and would like the opportunity of loaning to. You say that you can't understand me, and yet you're a whole lot more of an enigma yourself! You admit, in fact, you're inclined to boast, that you're a pickpocket and a safe-blower and yet I'd trust you, Lizard, with anything that I had."

"I've always had the reputation," said the Lizard, "of being a white guy with my friends. As a matter of fact, I ain't no different from what you'd probably be if you were in business and what most of your friends are. Morally they're a bunch of thieves and crooks. Of course, they don't go out and frisk any one and they don't work with a jimmy or a bottle of soup. They work their graft with the help of contracts and lawyers, and they'd gyp a friend or a pauper almost as soon as they would an enemy. I don't know much about morality, but when it comes right down to a question of morals I believe my trade is just as decent as that of a lot of these birds you see rolling up and down Mich Boul in their limousines."

"Yes," said the Lizard. "It's all in the point of view, and my point of view ain't warped by no college education."

"There's something in that," said the Lizard; "but don't get it into your head for a minute that I am tryin' to drag you from the straight and narrow. I think I like you better the way you are."

"No," said Elizabeth, "it's commencing to get on my nerves. Every time I turn a corner now I expect to bump into him. I suppose we see other people many times without recognizing them, but he is so utterly good-looking that he sort of sticks in one's memory."

"I don't know, I am sure," said Eliza beth, yawning. "You seem to be terribly interested in him."

"I've never been partial to serials," said Elizabeth.

"What do you mean?" asked Elizabeth.

"I don't know," sighed Elizabeth. "I'm afraid he's working too hard."

"Oh, fiddlesticks! "she exclaimed. "You know perfectly well that Harold Bince will never work himself to death."

"I will admit that he has stuck to his job more faithfully than anybody expected him to."

Harriet shook her head.

"How perfectly ridiculous!" cried Elizabeth. "Do you suppose that I would marry a man whom I didn't love?"

"Have you?" asked Elizabeth.

"Well, I do love him," insisted Elizabeth, "and I intend to marry him. I never had any patience with this silly, love-sick business that requires people to pine away when they are not together and bore everybody else to death when they were."

CHAPTER XIV.

IN AGAIN--OUT AGAIN.

His letters home were infrequent, for he found that his powers of invention were being rapidly depleted. It was difficult to write glowing accounts of the business success he was upon the point of achieving on the strength of any of the positions he so far had held, and doubly so during the far greater period that he had been jobless and hungry. But he had not been able to bring himself to the point of admitting to his family his long weeks of consistent and unrelieved failure.

"It is no use," he thought. "There must be something inherently wrong with me that in a city full of jobs I am unable to land anything without some sort of a pull and then only work that any unskilled laborer could perform."

He had driven for about a week when, upon coming into the barn after completing his morning delivery, he was instructed to take a special order to a certain address on Lake Shore Drive. Although the address was not that of one of his regular customers he felt that there was something vaguely familiar about it, but when he finally arrived he realized that it was a residence at which he had never before called.

On the alley in one corner of the property stood a garage and stable, in which Jimmy could see men working upon the owner's cars and about the box-stalls of his saddle horses. At the sight of the horses Jimmy heaved another sigh as he continued his way to the rear entrance. As he stood waiting for a reply to his summons he glanced back at the stable to see that horses had just entered and that their riders were dismounting, evidently two of the women of the household, and then a houseman opened the door and Jimmy made his delivery and started to retrace his steps to his wagon.

"What infernal luck," he groaned inwardly; "I suppose the next time I see that girl I'll be collecting garbage from her back door." And then, with his eyes straight to the front, he stepped aside to let the two pass.

"You never came to the house as I asked you to," said Miss Holden reproachfully. "We wanted so much to do something to repay you for your protection that night."

"There were many other men in the place," replied Harriet, "but you were the only one who came to our help."

"Did you?" asked Elizabeth.

"I wish," said Harriet, "that you would let us do something for you."

"I wasn't thinking of money," she said to Jimmy. "One can't pay for things like that with money, but we know so many people here we might help you in some way, if you are not entirely satisfied with your present position."

"No, thank you," he said to Harriet "it is kind of you, but really I am perfectly satisfied with my present job. It is by far the best one I have ever held," and touching his cap, he continued his interrupted way to his wagon.

"I don't believe it," retorted Harriet. "Unless I am greatly mistaken, that man is a gentleman. Everything about him indicates it; his inflection even is that of a well-bred man."

"Why shouldn't I be?" asked Harriet. "He's becoming my little pet mystery. I wonder under what circumstances we see him next?"

Jimmy's new job lasted two weeks, and then the milk-wagon drivers went on strike and Jimmy was thrown out of employment.

There ensued another month of idleness, during which Jimmy again had recourse to the Help Wanted column. The Lizard tried during the first week to find something for him, and then occurred a certain very famous safe-robbery, and the Lizard disappeared.

CHAPTER XV.

Early in March Jimmy was again forced to part with his watch. As he was coming out of the pawn-shop late in the afternoon he almost collided with Little Eva.

"Oh, it's nothing," said Jimmy ruefully. "I'm getting used to it."

"No," said Jimmy.

"Do you still breakfast at Feinheimer's?" asked Jimmy.

"To eat," said Jimmy, and then prompted by the instincts of his earlier training and without appreciable pause: "Won't you take dinner with me?" "No," said the girl, "but you are going to take dinner with me. You're out of a job and broke, and the chances are you've just this minute hocked your watch, while I have plenty of money. No," she said as Jimmy started to protest, "this is going to be on me. I never knew how much I enjoyed talking with you at breakfast until after you had left Feinheimer's. I've been real lonesome ever since," she admitted frankly. "You talk to me different from what the other men do." She pressed his arm gently. "You talk to me, kid, just like a fellow might talk to his sister."

It is difficult ever entirely to shatter the faith of such men, and however they may be wronged by individuals of the opposite sex their subjective attitude toward woman in the abstract is one of chivalrous respects. As far as outward appearances were concerned Little Eva might have passed readily as a paragon of all the virtues. As yet, there was no sign nor line of dissipation marked upon her piquant face, nor in her consociation with Jimmy was there ever the slightest reference to or reminder of her vocation.

"Help me find a job," he said to the girl, and together the two ran through the want columns.

"Quit your kidding," said Jimmy. "I'm looking for a job, not an acrostic."

"I can drive a milk-wagon," said Jimmy, "but the drivers are all on strike."

"Oh, he's a fellow who gums up the works, puts you three weeks behind in less than a week and has all your best men resigning inside of a month. I know, because my dad had one at his plant a few years ago."

It was the first reference that Jimmy had ever made to his connections or his past.

His companion made no comment, but resumed her reading of the advertisement before her:

WANTED, an Efficiency Expert--Machine works wants man capable of thoroughly reorganizing large business along modern lines, stopping leaks and systematizjng every activity. Call International Machine Company, West Superior Street. Ask for Mr. Compton.

"What do you have to know to be an efficiency expert?" asked the girl.

"Why don't you try it?" asked the girl.

"Oh, I didn't mean it that way," she cried. "But from what you tell me I imagine that all a man needs is a front and plenty of punch. You've got the front all right with your looks and gift of gab, and I leave it to Young Brophy if you haven't got the punch."

"It might be a good thing to have up his sleeve," replied the girl, and then suddenly, "do you believe in hunches?"

"Well, this is a hunch, take it from me," she continued. "I'll bet you can land that job and make good."

"I don't know," she replied, "but you know what a woman's intuition is."

"It isn't your clothes that count, Jimmy," she said, "it's the combination of that face of yours and what you've got in your head. You're the most efficient looking person I ever saw, and if you want a reference I'll say this much for you, you're the most efficient waiter that Feinheimer ever had. He said so himself, even after he canned you."

The girl laid her hand impulsively upon his.

"I don't see how I can," he objected. "The chances are I could never pay you back, and there is no reason in the world why you should loan me money. You are certainly under no obligation to me."

The man hesitated.

In a few minutes she returned. "Here," she said, "you've got to take it," and extended her hand toward him beneath the edge of the table. "I can't," said Jimmy. "It wouldn't be right."

"Do you mean," she said, "because it's my--because of what I am?"

"Here, take it!" she said, and drawing her hand away quickly, left a roll of bills in Jimmy's hand.

CHAPTER XVI.

That afternoon Mr. Harold Bince had entered his superior's office with an afternoon paper in his hand.

"I knew that if I told you, Harold, you would object," said the older man, "and I thought I would have a talk with several applicants before saying anything about it to any one. Of course, whoever we get will work with you, but I would rather not have it generally known about the plant. There seems to be a leak somewhere and evidently we are too close to the work to see it ourselves. It will require an outsider to discover it."

"We will not permit the organization to be disrupted," replied Mr. Compton. "It may do a lot of good to get a new angle on our problems and at least it will do no harm."

Compton looked at his watch. "It is getting late, Harold," he said, "and this is pay-day. I should think Everett could help you with the pay-roll." Everett was the cashier.

The following afternoon the office boy entered Mr. Compton's office. "A gentleman to see you, Sir," he announced. "He said to tell you that he came in reply to your advertisement."

"I am looking," said Mr. Compton, "for an experienced man who can come in here and find out just what is wrong with us. We have an old-established business which has been making money for years. We are taking all the work that we can possibly handle at the highest prices we have ever received, and yet our profits are not at all commensurate with the volume of business. It has occurred to me that an experienced man from the outside would be able to more quickly put his finger on the leaks and stop them. Now tell me just what your experience has been and we will see if we can come to some understanding."

"These are very good," said Mr. Compton, looking up from the letters. "I don't know that I need go any further. A great deal depends on a man's personality in a position of this sort, and from your appearance I should imagine that you're all right along that line and you seem to have had the right kind of experience. Now, what arrangement can we make?"

"I would rather leave that to you," he said. "What do you think the work would be worth to you?"

Jimmy saw an opening and leaped for it. "Oh, no!" he replied. "On the contrary, I wouldn't mind working into a permanent position, and if you think there might be a possibility of that I would consider a reasonable salary arrangement rather than the usual contract rate for expert service."

Two hundred and fifty dollars a month! Jimmy tried to look bored, but not too bored.

In Jimmy's pocket was a small book he had purchased at a second-hand bookshop the evening before, upon the cover of which appeared the title "How to Get More Out of Your Factory." He had not had sufficient time to study it thoroughly, but had succeeded in memorizing several principal headings on the contents page.

"I think," said Mr. Compton, "that you have the right idea. Some of your points are not entirely clear to me, as there are many modern methods that I have not, I am sorry to say, investigated sufficiently."

"And now," said Compton, "if you are satisfied with the salary, when can you start?"

"Good," exclaimed Compton, "but before you go I want you to meet our assistant general manager, Mr. Bince." And he led Jimmy toward Bince's office.

Jimmy had felt from the moment that he was introduced to Bince that the latter was antagonistic and now that the two were alone together he was not long left in doubt as to the correctness of his surmise. As soon as the door had closed behind Mr. Compton Bince wheeled toward Jimmy.

Jimmy nodded affirmatively.

"Oh, well," said Jimmy, "each one of us really has a system of his own. At first I won't seem to be accomplishing much, as I always lay the foundation of my future work by studying my men. Some men have that within them which spurs them on; while some need artificial initiative--outside encouragement." He hoped that the door to Compton's office was securely closed.

Here he hesitated a moment as though weighing his words, though as a matter of fact he had merely forgotten the title of the next chapter, but presently he went on again:

"Is that all?" asked Mr. Bince.

"Ah!" said Mr. Bince. "And just how, may I ask, do you make environment count on the balance-sheet? I do not quite understand."

"Oh," he said, "you will understand that thoroughly when we reach that point. It is one of the steps in my method. Other things lead up to it. It is really rather difficult to explain until we have a concrete example, something that you can really visualize, you know. But I assure you that it will be perfectly plain to you when we arrive at that point.

"All right," said Mr. Bince, "I suppose we shall see you Thursday, but just bear in mind, please, that you and I can work better together than at cross-purposes."

CHAPTER XVII.

As Jimmy left the office he discovered that those last words of Bince's had made a considerable and a rather unfavorable impression on him. He was sure that there was an underlying meaning, though just what it portended he was unable to imagine.

"Well, what luck?" she asked as he took the chair next to her.

"Don't feel that way," said the girl. "You'll make good, I know, and then it won t make any difference about the letters."

"Oh," said the girl, "that was easy. A girl who rooms at the same place I do works in a big printing and engraving plant and I got her to get me some samples of letterheads early this morning. In fact, I went down-town with her when she went to work and then I went over to the Underwood offices and wrote the recommendations out on a machine--I used to be a stenographer."

"I didn't forge anybody's name," replied the girl. "I made them up."

"As far as I know there are not," she replied, laughing.

"Why don't you get a position again as a stenographer?" he asked.

"Yes," he said, "I want you to very much."

As she finished speaking they were both aware that a man had approached their table and stopped opposite them. Jimmy and the girl looked up to see a large man in a dark suit looking down at Eva. Jimmy did not recognize the man, but he knew at once what he was.

"You know what's doing," said the officer. "How miny toimes do the capt'in have to be afther isshuin' orrders tellin' you janes to kape out uv dacent places?"

"To hell ye ain't," sneered O'Donnell. "Didn't I see ye flag this guy whin he came in?"

O'Donnell shifted his gaze from the girl to her escort and for the first time appraised Jimmy thoroughly. "Oh, it's you, is it?" he asked.

"Well, I've seen you before," said O'Donnell, "and ye put one over on me that time all roight, I can see now. I don't know what your game was, but you and the Lizard played it pretty slick when you could pull the wool over Patrick O'Donnell's eyes the way ye done."

"I am," said O'Donnell, "and I thought ye was a foine young gentleman, and you are a foine one," he said with intense sarcasm.

"I'm not going to pinch him," said O'Donnell; "I ain't got nothin' to pinch him for, but the next time I see him I'll know him."

"Naw," said O'Donnell, "they ain't, but you want to watch your step or they will."

O'Donnell flushed. "Watch your step, young lady," he said as he turned and walked away.

"Mollify nothing." returned the girl. "None of these big bruisers knows what decency is, and if you're decent to them they think you're afraid of them. When they got something on you you got to be nice, but when they haven't, tell them where they get off. I knew he wouldn't pinch me; he's got nothing to pinch me for, and he'd have been out of luck if he had, for there hasn't one of them got anything on me." "But won't he have it in for you?" asked Jimmy.

"I'm not worrying," said Jimmy. "I don't intend to let my foot slip in his direction."

----------------------- Thursday morning Jimmy took up his duties as efficiency expert at the plant of the International Machine Company. Since his interview with Compton his constant companion had been "How to Get More Out of Your Factory," with the result that he felt that unless he happened to be pitted against another efficiency expert he could at least make a noise like efficiency, and also he had grasped what he considered the fundamental principle of efficiency, namely, simplicity.

He knew that for a while his greatest asset would be bluff, but there was something about Mason Compton that had inspired in the young man a vast respect and another sentiment that he realized upon better acquaintance might ripen into affection. Compton reminded him in many ways of his father, and with the realization of that resemblance Jimmy felt more and more ashamed of the part he was playing, but now that he had gone into it he made up his mind that he would stick to it, and there was besides the slight encouragement that he had derived from the enthusiasm of the girl who had suggested the idea to him and of her oft-repeated assertion relative to her "hunch", that he would make good.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Unlike most other plants the International Machine Company paid on Monday, and it was on the Monday following his assumption of his new duties that Jimmy had his first clash with Bince. He had been talking with Everett, the cashier, whom, in accordance with his "method," he was studying. From Everett he had learned that it was pay-day and he had asked the cashier to let him see the pay-roll.

"Rather unusual, isn't it?" commented Jimmy.

"Well," said Jimmy, "I shall have to go to him to see it then."

"Oh, I guess he will." said Jimmy, and a moment later he knocked at Bince's office door. When Bince saw who it was he turned back to his work with a grunt.

"Working on the pay-roll?" said Jimmy. "Yes," snarled Bince.

"Impossible," said Bince. "The International Machine Company's pay-roll is confidential, absolutely confidential. Nobody sees it but me or Mr. Compton if he wishes to."

"That merely applied to operation records," said Bince. "It had nothing to do with the pay-roll."

"I shouldn't," said Bince.

"Look here," said Bince, "we agreed that we wouldn't interfere with each other. I haven't interfered with you. Now don't you interfere with me. This is my work, and my office is not being investigated by any efficiency expert or any one else."

Bince turned white with suppressed anger, and then suddenly slamming his pen on the desk, he wheeled around toward the other.

Jimmy had involuntarily acquired antipathy toward Bince at their first meeting, an antipathy which had been growing the more that he saw of the assistant general manager. This fact, coupled with Bince's present rather nasty manner, was rapidly arousing the anger of the efficiency expert. "I didn't come in here," he said, "to discuss your matrimonial prospects, Mr. Bince. I came in here to see the pay-roll, and you will oblige me by letting me see it."

Jimmy turned and left the room. He was on the point of going to Compton's office and asking for authority to see the pay-roll, and then it occurred to him that Compton would probably not take sides against his assistant general manager and future son-in-law.

On his way out he stopped at Everett's cage. "What was the amount of the check for the pay-roll for this week, Everett?" he asked.

"Thanks," said Jimmy, and returned to the shops to continue his study of his men, and as he studied them he asked many questions, made many notes in his little note-book, and always there were two questions that were the same: "What is your name? What wages do you get?"

Nor was it the pay-roll only that claimed Jimmy's attention. He found that several handlings of materials could be eliminated by the adoption of simple changes, and that a rearrangement of some of the machines removed the necessity for long hauls from one part of the shop to another. After an evening with the little volume he had purchased for twenty-five cents in the second-hand bookshop he ordered changes that enabled him to cut five men from the pay-roll and at the same time do the work more expeditiously and efficiently.

The day following the completion of the changes he had made in the shop he was in Compton's office.

"So do I," returned Jimmy, "but, then, my whole method is based upon simplicity. "And his mind traveled to the unpretentious little book on the table in his room on Indiana Avenue.

"I showed them how they could turn out more work and make more money by my plan. This appealed to the piece-workers. I demonstrated to the others that the right way is the easiest way--I showed them how they could earn their wages with less effort."

"I am getting the best kind of cooperation from the men in the shop, practically without exception," replied Jimmy, "although there is one fellow, a straw boss named Krovac, who does not seem to take as kindly to the changes I have made as the others, but he really doesn't amount to anything as an obstacle." Jimmy also thought of Bince and the pay-roll, but he was still afraid to broach the subject. Suddenly an inspiration came to him.

"Not a bad idea," said Compton. "I think we will do it."

"By the way, you don't happen to know of a good stenographer, do you? Miss Withe is leaving me Saturday."

"Yes," he said, "I do know of a young lady who, I believe, could do the work. Shall I have her call on you?"

As Jimmy left the office Compton rang for Bince, and when the latter came, told him of his plan to employ a firm of accountants to renovate their entire system of bookkeeping.

"Yes, the idea is his," replied Compton, "and I think it is a good one."

"I am afraid that you are prejudiced, Harold," said Compton. "I cannot discover that Torrance is doing anything to in any way complicate the shop work. As a matter of fact a single change which he has just made has resulted in our performing certain operations in less time and to better advantage with five less men than formerly. Just in this one thing he has not only more than earned his salary, but is really paying dividends on our investment."

"Mr. Compton," he said, "you have made me assistant general manager here and now, just when I am reaching a point where I feel I can accomplish something, you are practically taking the authority out of my hands and putting it in that of a stranger. I feel not only that you are making a grave mistake, but that it is casting a reflection on my work. It is making a difference in the attitude of the men toward me that I am afraid can never be overcome, and consequently while lessening my authority it is also lessening my value to the plant. I am going to ask you to drop this whole idea. As assistant general manager, I feel that it is working injury to the organization, and I hope that before it is too late--that, in fact, immediately, you will discharge Torrance and drop this idea of getting outsiders to come in and install a new accounting system."

Bince saw that it was futile to argue the matter further.

"Immediately," replied Compton. "I shall get in touch with somebody today."

CHAPTER XIX.

PLOTTING.

The same day the certified public accountants came. Mr. Harold Bince appeared nervous and irritable, and he would have been more nervous and more irritable had he known that Jimmy had just learned the amount of the pay-check from Everett and that he had discovered that, although five men had been laid off and no new ones employed since the previous week, the payroll check was practically the same as before-approximately one thousand dollars more than his note-book indicated it should be.

That afternoon Mr. Compton left the office earlier than usual, complaining of a headache, and the next morning his daughter telephoned that he was ill and would not come to the office that day. During the morning as Bince was walking through the shop he stopped to talk with Krovac.

In fact, for the past couple of weeks he had been using the man in an endeavor to get some information concerning Torrance and his methods that would permit him to go to Compton with a valid argument for Jimmy's discharge.

"He hasn't got my job yet," growled the other, "but he's letting out hard-working men with families without any reason. The first thing you know you'll have a strike on your hands."

"Then," said Bince, "I take it that he really hasn't interfered with you much?"

Bince's eyes narrowed. "He got that information from every man in the shop?" he asked.

Bince was very pale. He stood in silence for some minutes, apparently studying the man before him. At last he spoke.

"No," said the other, "I don't."

"Well?" questioned Krovac.

He looked straight into Krovac's eyes.

"It would be worth something of course," suggested Bince. "How much?" asked Krovac.

Krovac thought for a moment.

"I cannot give it to you here," said Bince, "but if I should happen to pass through the shop this afternoon you might find an envelope on the floor beside your machine after I have gone."

Jimmy dodged the blow and then both men sprang for him. The first one Jimmy caught on the point of the chin with a blow that put its recipient out of the fight before he got into it, and then his companion, who was the larger, succeeded in closing with the efficiency expert. Inadvertently, however, he caught Jimmy about the neck, leaving both his intended victim's arms free with the result that the latter was able to seize his antagonist low down about the body, and then pressing him close to him and hurling himself suddenly forward, he threw the fellow backward upon the cement sidewalk with his own body on top. With a resounding whack the attacker's head came in contact with the concrete, his arms relaxed their hold upon Jimmy's neck, and as the latter arose he saw both his assailants, temporarily at least, out of the fighting.

"A year ago," he thought to himself, smiling, "my first thought would have been to have called in the police, but the Lizard has evidently given me a new view-point in regard to them," for the latter had impressed upon Jimmy the fact that whatever knowledge a policeman might have regarding one was always acquired with the idea that eventually it might be used against the person to whom it pertained.

When Jimmy appeared in the shop the next morning he noted casually that Krovac had a cut upon his chin, but he did not give the matter a second thought. Bince had arrived late. His first question, as he entered the small outer office where Mr. Compton's stenographer and his worked, was addressed to Miss Edith Hudson.

"Yes," replied the girl, "he has been here some time. Do you wish to see him?"

"I wonder what's eating him," thought Miss Hudson to herself. "Of course he doesn't like Jimmy, but why is he so peeved because Jimmy came to work this morning--I don't quite get it."

"Well?" he asked.

"Maybe you'll have better luck the next time," growled Bince.

Bince held out his hand.

"Return nothin'," growled Krovac. "I sure done fifty dollars' worth last night."

"Nothin' doin'," said Krovac with an angry snarl. "It might be worth another fifty to you to know that I wasn't going to tell old man Compton."

"Don't go callin' me names," admonished Krovac. "A fellow that hires another to croak a man for him for one hundred bucks ain't got no license to call nobody names."

"Come," he said, "Krovac, there is no use in our quarreling. You can help me and I can help you. There must be some other way to get around this."

Mr. Bince did understand, but still he managed to control his temper.

"That isn't all you want to do," said Krovac. "There is something else."

"Yes," he said, "there is something beside Torrance's interference in the shop. He's interfering with our accounting system and I don't want it interfered with just now."

"It might be," said Bince.

"I don't want anybody 'croaked', "replied Bince. "I didn't tell you to kill Torrance in the first place. I just said I didn't want him to come back here to work."

"I want all the records of the certified public accountants who are working here," said Bince after a moment's pause. "I want them destroyed, together with the pay-roll records."

"They will all be in the safe in Mr. Compton's office."

"What do you mean?" asked Bince,

"How?" asked Bince. "Do you know where Feinheimer's is?"

"Well, you be over there to-night about ten thirty and I'll introduce you to a guy who can pull off this whole thing, and you and I won't have to be mixed up in it at all."

"At Feinheimer's," said Krovac.

CHAPTER XX.

As the workman passed through the little outer office Edith Hudson glanced up at him.

Jimmy was in the shop applying "How to Get More Out of Your Factory" to the problems of the International Machine Company when he was called to the telephone.

"It is," replied Jimmy.

"I suppose," said Elizabeth Compton as she turned away from the phone, "that an efficiency expert is a very superior party and that his conversation will be far above my head."

"Harold doesn't think so," said Elizabeth. "He is terribly put out about the fellow. He told me only the other night that he really believed that it would take years to overcome the bad effect that this man has had upon the organization and upon the work in general."

When Jimmy arrived at the Compton home he was ushered into the library where Mr. Compton was sitting. In a corner of the room, with her back toward the door, Elizabeth Compton sat reading. She did not lay aside her book or look in his direction as Jimmy entered, for the man was in no sense a guest in the light of her understanding of the term. He was merely one of her father's employees here on business to see him, doubtless a very ordinary sort of person whom she would, of course, have to meet when dinner was announced, but not one for whom it was necessary to put oneself out in any way.

"Elizabeth," he said, "this is Mr. Torrance, the efficiency expert at the plant."

Simultaneously there flashed through the minds of both in rapid succession a series of recollections of their previous meetings. The girl saw the clerk at the stocking-counter, the waiter at Feinheimer's, the prize-fighter at the training quarters and the milk-wagon driver. All these things passed through her mind in the brief instant of the introduction and her acknowledgment of it. She was too well-bred to permit any outward indication of her recognition of the man other than the first almost inaudible ejaculation that had been surprised from her.

"I am delighted," she said, "but I am afraid that I am a little awed, too, as I was just saying to father before you came that I felt an efficiency expert must be a very superior sort of person."

"Oh, not at all," replied Jimmy. "We efficiency experts are really quite ordinary people. One is apt to meet us in any place that nice people are supposed to go."

"I am afraid," she said, "that I do not understand very much about the nature or the purpose of your work, but I presume the idea is to make the concern with which you are connected more prosperous--more successful?"

"It must be very interesting work," commented the girl; "a profession that requires years of particular experience and study, and I suppose one must be really thoroughly efficient and successful himself, too, before he can help to improve upon the methods of others or to bring them greater prosperity."

"Even in trifling occupations, I presume," suggested the girl, "efficiency methods are best--an efficiency expert could doubtlessly drive a milk-wagon better than an ordinary person?" And she looked straight into Jimmy's eyes, an unquestioned challenge in her own.

"Or sell stockings?" suggested Elizabeth.

"I do not wish to humiliate you unnecessarily in the presence of my father," she said. "You have managed to deceive him into believing that you are what you claim to be. Mr. Bince has known from the start that you are incompetent and incapable of accomplishing the results father thinks you are accomplishing. Now that you know that I know you to be an impostor, what do you intend to do?"

"How long do you suppose father would keep you after I told him what I know of you? Do you think that he would for a moment place the future of his business in the hands of an ex-waiter from Feinheimer's---that he would let a milk-wagon driver tell him how to run his business?"

"You refuse to leave, then?" she demanded.

"Very well," she replied; "I shall tell father when he returns to this room just what I know of you."

The girl flushed. "You would tell him that?" she demanded. "Oh, of course, I might have known that you would. It is difficult to realize that any one dining at my father's home is not a gentleman. I had forgotten for the moment."

CHAPTER XXI.

JIMMY TELLS THE TRUTH.

During the conversation that ensued Jimmy discovered that Bince had been using every argument at his command to induce Compton to let him go, as well as getting rid of the certified public accountants.

"As a matter of fact, Mr. Torrance, I have reached the point where I don't particularly relish a fight, as I did in the past. I would rather have things run along smoothly than to have this feeling of unrest and unpleasantness that now exists in the plant. I do not say that you are to blame for it, but the fact remains that ever since you came I have been constantly harassed by this same unpleasant condition which grows worse day by day. There is no question but what you have accomplished a great deal for us of a practical nature, but I believe in view of Mr. Bince's feelings in the matter that we had better terminate our arrangement."

They were passing through the hallway from the dining-room to the library, and as Compton concluded what was equivalent to Jimmy's discharge, he had stopped and turned toward the younger man. They were standing near the entrance to the music-room in which Elizabeth chanced to be, so that she overheard her father's words, and not without a smile of satisfaction and relief.

"What do you mean?" asked Compton.

"How?" asked Compton.

"I wish to know now," said Compton, "how I am being robbed."

For a full minute Compton did not speak.

Jimmy bid his employer good night, and Mr. Compton turned into the library as the former continued along across the hall to the entrance. He was putting on his overcoat when Elizabeth Compton emerged from the music-room and approached him.

"I am sorry that you think that," said Jimmy. "If it was not for your father and you I wouldn't have urged the matter at all."

Jimmy felt the blood mounting to his face. He was mortified and angry, and yet he was helpless because his traducer was a woman. Unconsciously he drew himself to his full height.

And as he closed the door behind him he left a very angry young lady biting her lower lip and almost upon the verge of angry tears.

The telephone interrupted her unhappy train of thoughts. It was Bince.

"He seems very tired and despondent," replied Elizabeth. "That efficiency person was here to dinner. He just left."

"Father asked him to dinner, and when he wanted to discharge the fellow Torrance told him something that upset father terribly, and urged that he be kept a little while longer, to which father agreed."

"Oh, some alarmist tale about somebody robbing father. I didn't quite make out what it was all about, but it had something to do with the pay-roll."

"I have," replied the girl, "and he was on the point of doing it until Torrance told him this story."

After Jimmy left the Compton home he started to walk down-town. It was too early to go to his dismal little room on Indiana Avenue. The Lizard was still away. He had seen nothing of him for weeks, and with his going he had come to realize that he had rather depended upon the Lizard for company. He was full of interesting stories of the underworld and his dry humor and strange philosophy amused and entertained Jimmy.

"Is that you, Edith?" he asked, and at the affirmative reply, "this is Jimmy Torrance. I'm feeling terribly lonesome. I was wondering if I couldn't drag you out to listen to my troubles?"

As the girl hung up the receiver and turned from the phone a slightly quizzical expression reflected some thought that was in her mind. "I wonder," she said as she returned to her room, "if he is going to be like the rest?"

When Jimmy Torrance alighted from the Clark Street car he found Edith waiting for him.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"Is there something wrong at the plant?" she asked.

"Bince?" asked the girl. Jimmy nodded. "I didn't like that pill," she said, "from the moment I saw him."

"Have you got the goods on him?" asked Edith.

"What do you want to do?" she asked.

"That suits me all right," said the girl. "There is a dandy comedy down at the Castle."

"I'll tell you," Edith suggested. "Suppose we go to Feinheimer's restaurant and see if we can't get that table that I used to eat at when you waited on me?" They both laughed.

"Not if you have any money to spend in his place."

Jimmy sat looking at the girl's profile as she studied the menu-card. She was very pretty. He had always thought her that, but somehow to-night she seemed to be different, even more beautiful than in the past. He wished that he could forget what she had been. And he realized as he looked at her sweet girlish face upon which vice had left no slightest impression to mark her familiarity with vice, that it might be easy to forget her past. And then between him and the face of the girl before him arose the vision of another face, the face of the girl that he had set upon a pedestal and worshiped from afar. And with the recollection of her came a realization of the real cause of his sorrow and depression earlier in the evening.

Always, though he had realized that she was unattainable, there must have lingered within his breast a faint spark of hope that somehow, some time, there would be a chance, but after to-night he knew there could never be a chance. She had openly confessed her contempt for him, and how would she feel later when she realized that through his efforts her happiness was to be wrecked, and the man she loved and was to marry branded as a criminal?

CHAPTER XXII.

The girl opposite him looked up from the card before her. The lines of her face were softened by the suggestion of a contented smile. "My gracious!" she exclaimed. "What's the matter now? You look as though you had lost your last friend."

It was easy to see that his words pleased her.

"You're not making any mess of this new job," she said. "You're making good. You see, my hunch was all right."

The girl's eyes were wandering around the room, taking in the faces of the diners about them. Suddenly she extended her hand and laid it on Jimmy's.

Slowly Jimmy turned his eyes in the direction she indicated.

"And thick as thieves," said the girl.

The two men left the restaurant before Edith and Jimmy had finished their supper, leaving the two hazarding various guesses as to the reason for their meeting.

Their supper over, they walked to Clark Street and took a northbound car, but after alighting Jimmy walked with the girl to the entrance of her apartment.

He unlocked the outer door for her and was holding it open.

As Jimmy turned away to retrace his steps to the car-line he found his mind suddenly in a whirl of jumbled emotions, for he was not so stupid as to have failed to grasp something of the significance of the girl's words and manner.

The girl hurried to her room and turned on the lights, and again she seated herself before her mirror, and for a moment sat staring at the countenance reflected before her. She saw lips parted to rapid breathing, lips that curved sweetly in a happy smile, and then as she sat there looking she saw the expression of the face before her change. The lips ceased to smile, the soft, brown eyes went wide and staring as though in sudden horror. For a moment she sat thus and then, throwing her body forward upon her dressing-table, she buried her face in her arms.

Mason Compton was at his office the next morning, contrary to the pleas of his daughter and the orders of his physician. Bince was feeling more cheerful. Murray had assured him that there was a way out. He would not tell Bince what the way was.

All of which relieved Mr. Harold Bince's elastic conscience of any feeling of responsibility in the matter. Whatever Murray did was no business of his. He was glad that Murray hadn't told him.

The noon mail brought a letter from Murray.

"He's framing an alibi before he starts."

Compton read it, and his brows knitted. "Have the men been complaining at all?" he asked.

"He ought to know about this," said Compton. "Wait; I'll have him in," and he pressed a button on his desk. A moment later Jimmy entered, and Compton showed him the note.

"I doubt if it amounts to much," replied Jimmy. "The men have no grievance. It may be the work of some fellow who was afraid of his job, but I doubt if it really emanates from any organized scheme of intimidation. If I were you, sir, I would simply ignore it."

"Very well," assented Compton, "but we'll preserve this bit of evidence in case we may need it later," and he handed the slip of paper to Edith Hudson. "File this, please, Miss Hudson," he said; and then, turning to Bince:

Jimmy shook his head negatively.

Compton opened a desk drawer.

The latter smiled. "Really, Mr. Compton," he said, "I don't believe I need such an article."

A moment later Bince and Jimmy left the office together. Jimmy still carried the pistol in his hand.

They were in the small office on which Compton's and Bince's offices opened, and Jimmy had stopped beside the desk that had been placed there for him.

Compton was looking through the papers and letters on his desk, evidently searching for something which he could not find, while the girl sat awaiting for him to continue his dictation.

"I was certain that that letter was here. Have you seen anything of a letter from Mosher."

"Well, I wish you would step into Mr. Bince's office, and see if it is on his desk."

As its import dawned upon her, her eyes widened at first in surprise and then narrowed as she realized the value of her discovery. At first she placed the letter back with the others just as she had found them, but on second thought she took it up quickly and, folding it, slipped it inside her waist. Then she returned to Compton's office.

CHAPTER XXIII.

LAID UP.

Miss Holden smiled.

"I didn't mean physically," retorted Elizabeth. "It is absolutely insufferable. I am going to demand that father discharge the man."

"You are utterly impossible, Harriet!" cried Elizabeth, stamping her foot. "You are as bad as that efficiency person. But, then, I might have expected it! You have always, it seems to me, shown a great deal more interest in the fellow than necessary, and probably the fact that Harold doesn't like him is enough to make you partial toward him, for you have never tried to hide the fact that you don't like Harold."

At about the same time the Lizard entered Feinheimer's. In the far corner of the room Murray was seated at a table. The Lizard approached and sat down opposite him. "Here I am," he said. "What do you want, and how did you know I was in town?"

"You're in luck then," said the Lizard. "I just blew in this morning. What kind of a job you got?"

"They got a watchman," he concluded, "but I've got a guy on de inside that'll fix him."

"In about a week. I'll let you know the night later. Dey ordinarily draw the payroll money Monday, the same day dey pay, but dis week they'll draw it Saturday and leave it in the safe. It'II be layin' on top of a hunch of books and papers. Dey're de t'ings you're to destroy. As I told you, it will all be fixed from de inside. Dere's no danger of a pinch. All you gotta do is crack de safe, put about a four or five t'ousand dollar roll in your pocket, and as you cross de river drop a handful of books and papers in. Nothin' to it--it's the easiest graft you ever had."

"Sure thing!" replied Murray.

"Dat I can't tell you until the day we're ready to pull off de job."

That night Bince got Murray over the phone. He told him of Jimmy's sickness.

For four or five days Jimmy was a pretty sick man. He was allowed to see no one, but even if Jimmy had been in condition to give the matter any thought he would not have expected to see any one, for who was there to visit him in the hospital, who was there who knew of his illness, to care whether he was sick or well, alive or dead? It was on the fifth day that Jimmy commenced to take notice of anything. At Compton's orders he had been placed in a private room and given a special nurse, and to-day for the first time he learned of Mr. Compton's kindness and the fact that the nurse was instructed to call Jimmy's employer twice a day and report the patient's condition.

The young woman shook her head negatively.

Jimmy was silent for some time. "She comes every evening?" he asked.

"May I see her this evening?" asked Jimmy.

The girl came every evening thereafter and sat with Jimmy as long as the nurse would permit her to remain. Jimmy discovered during those periods a new side to her character, a mothering tenderness that filled him with a feeling of content and happiness the moment that she entered the room, and which doubtless aided materially in his rapid convalescence, for until she had been permitted to see him Jimmy had suffered as much from mental depression as from any other of the symptoms of his disease.

Jimmy's nurse quite fell in love with Edith.

The suggestion which her words implied came to Jimmy as a distinct shock. He had never thought of Edith Hudson in the light of this suggestion, and now he wondered if there could be any such sentiment as it implied in Edith's heart, but finally he put the idea away with a shrug.

CHAPTER XXIV.

IN THE TOILS.

In accordance with Jimmy's plan, the C.P.A.'s were to give out no information to any one, even to Mr. Compton, until their investigation and report were entirely completed. This plan had been approved by Mr. Compton, although he professed to be at considerable loss to understand why it was necessary. It was, however, in accordance with Jimmy's plan to prevent, if possible, any interference with the work of the auditors until every available fact in the case had been ascertained and recorded.

Although the investigators seemed to accept his statements at their face value, the assistant general manager was far from being assured that their final report would redound to his credit.

When Edith reached the hospital that evening she found Jimmy in high spirits. He was dressed for the first time, and assured her that he was quite able to return to work if the doctor would let him, but the nurse shook her head. "You ought to stay here for another week or ten days," she admonished him.

"But you can't do it," said the nurse.

"The doctor won't permit it."

"I'll be over there Friday evening or Saturday morning at the latest," he said as she bid him good-bye.

That evening Harold Bince met Murray at Feinheimer's, and still later the Lizard received word that Murray wanted to see him.

He returned to his down-town club about dinner-time, and at eight o'clock he called up Elizabeth Compton.

"I'll be over," said Bince, "as soon as I dress." If there was any trace of surprise or shock in his tones the girl failed to notice it.

At about the same time Jimmy's landlady called him to the telephone, where a man's voice asked if "this was Mr. Torrance?" Assured that such was the fact, the voice continued: "I am the new watchman at the plant. There's something wrong here. I can't get hold of Mr. Compton. I think you better come down. I'll be in Mr. Compton's office--" The message ceased as though central had disconnected them.

Although the Lizard knew that there was no danger of detection, yet from long habit he moved through the plant of the International Machine Company with the noiselessness of a disembodied spirit. Occasionally, and just for the briefest instant, he flashed his lamp ahead of him, but though he had never been in the place before he found it scarcely necessary, so minute had been his instructions for reaching the office from the fifth basement window.

Some one was tiptoeing across the floor above. The Lizard was in the hallway close beside the stairs when he realized the footsteps were coming toward the stairway, and a moment later that they were cautiously descending. The Lizard flattened himself against the wall, and if he breathed his lungs gave forth no sound.

At least the Lizard knew that those were the footsteps of no watchman, but whether it be guardian of the law or fellow criminal the Lizard had no wish to be discovered. He wondered what had gone wrong with Murray's plans, and, suddenly imbued with the natural suspicion of the criminal, it occurred to him that the whole thing might be a frame-up to get him; and yet why Murray should wish to get him he could not imagine. He ran over in his mind a list all those who might feel enmity toward him, but among them all the Lizard could cast upon none who might have sufficient against him to warrant such an elaborate scheme of revenge.

The Lizard, listening intently for a few moments to assure himself that there was no one else above, and that the man who had just departed was not returning, at last continued his way to the foot of the stairs, which he ascended to the second floor. Passing through the outer office, he paused a moment before the door to Compton's private office, and then silently turning the knob he gently pushed the door open and stepped into the room.

A half-hour later detective headquarters at the Central Station received an anonymous tip: "Send some one to the office of the International Machine Company, on the second floor of West Superior Street."

"Strange," he thought, "that after sending for me the fellow didn't wait." As these thoughts passed through his mind he fumbled on the wall for the switch, and, finding it, flooded the office with light.

Jimmy felt of Compton's face and hands. They were warm. And then he placed his ear close against the man's breast, in order to see if he could detect the beating of the heart. He was in this position when he was startled by a gruff voice behind him.

CHAPTER XXV.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

"Compton has been murdered," said Jimmy dully. "He is dead."

It was then for the first time that Jimmy realized the meaning that might be put upon his presence alone in the office with his dead employer. O'Donnell's partner searched him, but found no weapon upon him.

"Whoever did this probably took it with him." said Jimmy. "Find the watchman."

"Ever see this before?" asked O'Donnell, holding the pistol up to Jimmy.

The wagon came and took Jimmy to the station, and later he was questioned by the lieutenant in charge.

"It is not," replied Jimmy.

"No, I have not."

"Do you know this man, Mr. Bince?" asked the lieutenant.

"Did you ever see this pistol before?"

"Yes," he said.

"It was one of two that Mr. Compton had in his desk. This one he loaned to Torrance two or three weeks ago. I was in the office at the time."

"Now do you recognize it?" he asked.

"But you admit he loaned you one?"

"What did you do with it?" asked the policeman.

"You say you couldn't identify the pistol?" said the officer.

"Well, we can, and have. The number of this pistol was recorded when Mr. Compton bought it, as was the number of the other one which is still in his desk. They were the only two pistols he ever bought, according to Mr. Bince, and his daughter, aside from one which he had at home, which has also been accounted for. The drawer in which Mr. Bince saw you place this pistol we found open and the pistol gone. It looks pretty bad for you, young fellow, and if you want a chance to dodge the rope you'd better plead guilty and tell us why you did it."

O'Donnell made the most of his meager knowledge of Jimmy. He told the lieutenant with embellishments of Jimmy's association with such characters as the Lizard and Little Eva; but the police were still at a loss to discover a motive.

"You know this man?" asked the lieutenant.

"I saw him again when he was driving a milk-wagon. He delivered milk at a friend's house where I chanced to be. The last time I saw him was at my father's home. He had obtained employment in my father's plant as an efficiency expert. He seemed to exercise some strange power over father, who believed implicitly in him, until recently, when he evidently commenced to have doubts; for the night that the man was at our house I was sitting in the music-room when they passed through the hallway, and I heard father discharge him. But the fellow pleaded to be retained, and finally father promised to keep him for a while longer, as I recall it, at least until certain work was completed at the plant. This work was completed yesterday. That's all I know. I do not know whether father discharged him again or not."

The lieutenant was still asking questions when there came a knock at the door, which was immediately opened, revealing O'Donnell with a young woman, whom he brought inside.

"Well, who is she?" demanded the lieutenant.

Thus did Sergeant Patrick O'Donnell solve the entire mystery with Sherlockian ease and despatch.

Jimmy had been in jail for about a week when he received a visitor. A turnkey brought her to his cell. It was Harriet Holden. She greeted him seriously but pleasantly, and then she asked the turnkey if she might go inside.

"I have been wanting to talk to you," said the girl to Jimmy, "ever since this terrible thing happened. Somehow I can not believe that you are guilty, and there must be some way in which you can prove your innocence."

"There must always be a motive for a crime like that," said Harriet. "I cannot believe that a simple fear of his discharge would be sufficient motive for any man to kill his employer."

"Who could there be, then, who might wish to kill him, and what could the motive be?"

Harriet Holden looked up at him quickly, a sudden light in her eyes, and an expression of almost horrified incredulity upon her face. "You don't mean--" she started.

The girl remained for half an hour longer, and when she left she went directly to the home of Elizabeth Compton.

"I have talked with Torrance for over half an hour to-day, and since then nothing can ever make me believe that that man could commit a cold-blooded murder. Harold has always hated him--you admit that yourself--and now you are permitting him to prejudice you against the man purely on the strength of that dislike. I am going to help him. I'm going to do it, not only to obtain justice for him, but to assist in detecting and punishing the true murderer."

"He told me about her to-day," replied Harriet. "He had only known her very casually, but she helped him once--loaned him some money when he needed it---and when he found that she had been a stenographer and wanted to give up the life she had been leading and be straight again, he helped her.

"How are you going to help him?" asked Elizabeth. "Take flowers and cake to him in jail?"

CHAPTER XXVI.

"THE ONLY FRIENDS HE HAS."

Jimmy looked at him in silence for a moment.

"That needn't worry you?" replied the lawyer.

"That I am not permitted to tell you," replied the lawyer.

"Don't be a fool," said the attorney. "This client of mine can well afford the expense, and anyway, my instructions are to defend you whether you want me to or not, so I guess you can't help yourself."

"I will see what can be done," replied the attorney, "although I had no instructions to defend her also."

The result was that within a few days Edith was released. From the moment that she left the jail she was aware that she was being shadowed.

She went directly to her apartment and presently took down the telephone-receiver, and after calling a public phone in a building down-town, she listened intently while the operator was getting her connection, and before the connection was made she hung up the receiver with a smile, for she had distinctly heard the sound of a man's breathing over the line, and she knew that in all probability O'Donnell had tapped in immediately on learning that she had been released from jail.

Five minutes later she was in a telephone-booth in a drug-store two blocks away.

"Is that you, Carl?" she asked as a man's voice finally answered the telephone. "This is Little Eva."

"I was released to-day," she explained. "Well, listen, Carl; I've got to see the Lizard. I've simply got to see him to-night. I was being shadowed, but I got away from them. Do you know where he is?"

"I'll be waiting in a taxi outside," said the girl.

"All right," said the girl, "I'll be there. You tell him that he simply must come." She hung up the receiver and then called a taxi. She gave a number on a side street about a half block away, where she knew it would be reasonably dark, and consequently less danger of detection.

Recognizing the girl he opened the door and took a seat beside her. "Well," inquired the Lizard, "What's on your mind?"

"I thought so," returned the Lizard. "It looks pretty bad for him, don't it? I wish there was some way to help him."

"It didn't seem like him." said the Lizard, "but I got it straight from a guy who knows that he done it all right."

"Murray."

"No," replied the Lizard; "not so you could notice it."

"What is it?" asked the Lizard.

The Lizard was thinking fast. The girl knew nothing of his connection with the job. She did not know that he had entered Compton's office and had been first to find his dead body; in fact, no one knew that. Even Murray did not know that the Lizard had succeeded in entering the plant, as the latter had told him that he was delayed, and that when he reached there a patrol and ambulance were already backed up in front of the building. He felt that he had enough knowledge, however, to make the conviction of Jimmy a very difficult proposition, but if he divulged the knowledge he had and explained how he came by it he could readily see that suspicion would be at once transferred from Jimmy to himself.

"You will get it, won't you?" asked the girl.

"They are in the outer office which adjoins Mr. Compton's. My desk stands at the right of the door as you enter from the main office. Remove the right-hand lower drawer and you will find the papers lying on the little wooden partition directly underneath the drawer."

"Bless you, Lizard," cried the girl. "I knew you would help. You and I are the only friends he has. If we went back on him he'd be sent up, for there's lots of money being used against him. He might even be hanged. I know from what I have heard that the prosecuting attorney intends to ask for the death penalty."

"Take them to his attorney," said the girl, and she gave him the name and address.

A sharp "Halt!" came from the man on the motorcycle, but the taxicab leaped forward, and, accelerating rapidly, turned to the left into the road toward the city. The girl had guessed at the first glance that the man on the motorcycle was a police officer. As the Lizard's taxi raced away the officer circled quickly and started in pursuit. "No chance," thought the girl. "He'll get caught sure." She could hear the staccato reports from the open exhaust of the motorcycle diminishing rapidly in the distance, indicating the speed of the pursued and the pursuer.

It was after two o'clock in the morning when the Lizard entered an apartment on Ashland Avenue which he had for several years used as a hiding-place when the police were hot upon his trail. The people from whom he rented the room were eminently respectable Jews who thought their occasional roomer what he represented himself to be, a special agent for one of the federal departments, a vocation which naturally explained the Lizard's long absences and unusual hours.

"Believe me," muttered the Lizard, "that was the toughest job I ever pulled off and all I gets is two pieces of paper, but I don't know but what they're worth it."

He realized that he knew more about the Compton murder case than any one else. He was of the opinion that be could clear it up if he were almost any one other than the Lizard, but with the record of his past life against him, would any one believe him? In order to prove his assertion it would be necessary to make admissions that might incriminate himself, and there would be Murray and the Compton millions against him; and as he pondered these things there ran always through his mind the words of the girl, "You and I are the only friends he has."

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE TRIAL.

All that day and the next she waited, scarcely leaving her room for fear that the call might come while she was away. The days ran into weeks and still there was no word from the Lizard.

The State had established as unassailable a case as might he built on circumstantial evidence. Krovac had testified that Torrance had made threats against Compton in his presence, and there was no way in which Jimmy's attorneys could refute the perjured statement. Jimmy himself had come to realize that his attorney was fighting now for his life, that the verdict of the jury was already a foregone conclusion and that the only thing left to fight for now was the question of the penalty.

Jimmy's sentiments toward the three women whose interests brought them daily to the court-room had undergone considerable change. The girl that he had put upon a pedestal to worship from afar, the girl to whom he had given an idealistic love, he saw now in another light. His reverence for her had died hard, but in the face of her arrogance, her vindictiveness and her petty snobbery it had finally succumbed, so that when he compared her with the girl who had been of the street the latter suffered in no way by the comparison.

Just how far that assistance had gone Jimmy did not know, though of late he had come to suspect that his attorney was being retained by Harriet Holden's father.

The effect of the trial seemed to have made greater inroads upon Bince than upon Jimmy. The latter gave no indication of nervous depression or of worry, while Bince, on the other hand, was thin, pale and haggard. His hands and face continually moved and twitched as he sat in the courtroom or on the witness chair. Never for an instant was he at rest.

"What's the matter with you, Harold?" she asked. "You look as though you are on the verge of nervous prostration."

"I wish, Elizabeth," he went on, "that we might be married immediately. I have asked you so many times before, however, and you have always refused, that I suppose it is useless now. I believe that I would get over this nervous condition if you and I were settled down here together. I have no real home, as you know--the club is just a stopping place. I might as well be living at a hotel. If after the day's work I could come home to a regular home it would do me a world of good, I know. We could be married quietly. There is every reason why we should, especially now that you are left all alone."

"To-morrow," he replied.

Mr. and Mrs. Harold Bince entered the court-room late on Friday morning following the brief ceremony that had made them man and wife. It had been generally supposed that to-day the case would go to the jury as the evidence was all in, and the final arguments of the attorneys, which had started the preceding day, would be concluded during the morning session. It had been conceded that the judge's charge would be brief and perfunctory, and there was even hope that the jury might return a verdict before the close of the afternoon session, but when Bince and his bride entered the court-room they found Torrance's attorney making a motion for the admission of new evidence on the strength of the recent discovery of witnesses, the evidence of whom he claimed would materially alter the aspect of the case.

"Will you tell the jury, please, of any occurrence that you witnessed there that afternoon out of the ordinary?"

"How much money?" asked the attorney.

"Did he say what it was for?" "Yes, be said Bince gave it to him to croak this fellow"--nodding toward Jimmy.

"Yes, sir."

"Krovac said he'd split it with me if I'd go along and help him."

"Yes."

"The guy beat up Krovac and come near croaking me, and got away."

The prosecuting attorney, whose repeated objections to the testimony of the witness had been overruled, waived cross-examination.

Murray, burly and swaggering, took the witness chair. The attorney handed him a letter. It was the letter that Murray had written Bince enclosing the supposed I.W.W. threat.

Murray took the letter and read it over several times. He was trying to see in it anything which could possibly prove damaging to him.

Murray hesitated before replying. "Oh," he said, "that ain't nothing. That was just a little joke."

"Mr. Bince thought there was going to be a strike at his plant and he wanted me to fix it up for him," replied Murray.

"Yes."

"You haven't got much use for him, have you?" continued the attorney.

"You called the defendant on the telephone a half or three-quarters of an hour before the police discovered Mr. Compton's body, did you not?"

Murray was silent for a moment. Suddenly he half rose from his chair. "Yes I remember it," he said. "They are all trying to double-cross me. I had nothing to do with killing Compton. That wasn't in the deal at all. Ask that man there; he will tell you that I had nothing to do with killing Compton. He hired me and he knows," and with shaking finger Murray pointed at Mr Harold Bince where he sat with his wife beside the prosecuting attorney.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

For a moment there was tense silence in the court-room which was broken by the defense's perfunctory "Take the witness" to the prosecuting attorney, but again cross-examination was waived.

"I wish you would tell the jury," said the counsel for defense after the witness had been sworn, "just what you told me in my office yesterday afternoon."

"I didn't know who they were framin' this job on. If I had I wouldn't have had nothin' to do with it.

"When I gets in Compton's office where the safe is I flashes my light and the first thing I sees is Compton's body on the floor beside his desk. That kind of stuff ain't in my line, so I beats it out without crackin' the safe. That's all I know about it until I sees the papers, and then for a while I was afraid to say anything because this guy O'Donnell has it in for me, and I know enough about police methods to know that they could frame up a good case of murder against me. But after a while Miss Hudson finds me and puts it up to me straight that this guy Torrance hasn't got no friends except me and her.

"You say that a man came down from Mr. Compton's office just before you went up? What time was that?"

"And then you went upstairs and found Mr. Compton dead?"

"Yes, I did."

"Sure."

"Sure I can find him. I seen him when I first came in, but I can't see his face because he's hiding behind the prosecuting attorney."

For a moment longer he stood looking wildly about the room, and then with rapid strides he crossed it to an open window, and before any one could interfere he vaulted out, to fall four stories to the cement sidewalk below.

"Take me home, Harriet," she asked; "take me away from this place. Take me to your home. I do not want to go back to mine yet."

"I am sorry," said Jimmy; "I should like to immensely, but there is some one I must see first. If I may I should like to come out later in the evening to thank you and Miss Holden."

"Don't then," said the Lizard. "Who you ought to thank is that little girl who is sick in bed up on the north side."

"Pneumonia," said the Lizard. "I telephoned her doctor just before I came over here, and I guess if you want to see her at all you'd better hurry."

"I'm afraid it is," said the Lizard.

The nurse shook her head.

"It won't make any difference now," said the nurse, and Jimmy was led into the room where the girl, wasted by fever and suffering, lay in a half-comatose condition upon her narrow bed. Jimmy crossed the room and laid his hand upon her forehead and at the touch she opened her eyes and looked up at him. He saw that she recognized him and was trying to say something, and he kneeled beside the bed so that his ear might be closer to her lips.

He told her briefly of what had happened. "I am so happy," she murmured. "Oh, Jimmy, I am so happy!"

He gathered her in his arms and lifted her face to his. "Dear little girl," he said, "you are not going to die. It is not as bad as that."

"Jimmy," she said, "will you stay with me until I go?" The man could make no articulate response, but he pressed her hand reassuringly. She was silent again for some time. Once more she whispered faintly, so faintly that he had to lean close to catch her words:

The nurse was standing at the foot of the bed. She came and put her hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "It is too bad," she said; "she was such a good girl."

It was after nine o'clock when Jimmy, depressed and sorrowing, arrived at the Holden home. The houseman who admitted him told him that Mr. Holden had been called out, but that Miss Holden was expecting him, and he ushered Jimmy to the big living-room, and to his consternation he saw that Elizabeth Compton was there with Harriet. The latter came forward to greet him, and to his surprise the other girl followed her.

"There is no one now whom I feel I would have so much confidence in as you. I wish you would come back and take charge for me. If you will tell me that you will consider it we will arrange the details later."

"Do you know," said Harriet, after Elizabeth had gone, "she really feels worse over her past attitude toward you than she does over Harold's death? I think she realizes now what I have told her from the first, that she never really loved him. Of course, her pride has suffered terribly, but she will get over that quickly enough.

"I am happy about that," said Jimmy, "but on top of my happiness came a sorrow. I just came from Edith's apartment. She died while I was there."

"She was such a good little girl," said Harriet.

It gave Jimmy a new insight into the sweetness and charity of Harriet Holden's character. "Yes," he said, "her soul and her heart were good and pure."

"And you have been a good friend," said Jimmy. "In the face of the same circumstances that turned Miss Compton against me you believed in me. Your generosity made it possible for me to be defended by the best attorney in Chicago, but more than all that to me has been your friendship and the consciousness of your sympathy at a time when, above all things, I needed sympathy. And now, after all you have done for me I came to ask still more of you."

She was standing very close to him, looking up in his face.

She smiled tremulously. "I have been yours for a long time, Jimmy, but you didn't know it."