s
scandalously deep, the hands distressingly large and brown, considered
in intimate association with filing systems and adding machines. And
the keen blue eyes, sometimes gazing with a far-away, unbusiness-like
look out into the grimy, roaring canon called Wabash Avenue, sometimes
twinkling with unbusinesslike mischief, inevitably completed the
exposure of Roger Payne.

He did not belong there, and he knew it. Hence it was that he suddenly
jerked his long legs from the desk, sat up and said swiftly:

"Jim Tibbetts, I want you to buy me out!"

Tibbetts blinked. He was bald, plump, spectacled and kindly.

"Eh? What say? Dang it, Rog, you made me lose count!"

He began all over to foot the column of cost figures. He footed from
bottom to top, checked the result by footing from top to bottom, erased
his light penciled figures and rewrote them in ink, laid the sheet to
one side and folded his hands in resignation.

"I knew it was coming, Rog. I've seen the signs for weeks past.
You've been ramping round like a man in prison. Dang it, Rog, I'm
sorry."

"Jim," said Roger, "this is no business for me to be in."

"It's a good business, Roger," protested Tibbetts mildly. "There's
nothing wrong with it. We've been running only two years. Look what
we've done. Look at our prospects. We're pretty well off already.
We'll be rich pretty soon. Why? Because Roger Payne comes pretty near
being a genius with machinery and Jim Tibbetts can beat most fellows
selling. It's too good to spoil, Roger."

"Two years," repeated Payne slowly. "Jim, it seems like a lifetime to
me, and it doesn't seem real. The other did--bridgebuilding,
irrigation, timber cruising. That was living."

"That was bumming, and you know it!" protested Tibbetts. "That was kid
stuff; it was your way of sowing your wild oats. How much money did
you have when it was over? How much have you got now, after only two
years of business? It was time-wasting, that's what it was, and you
know it."

"It was outdoors," said Payne.

They were silent for a while.

"Roger," said Tibbetts sorrowfully, "are you beginning to turn dreamer?"

"No," said Payne emphatically, "I'm waking up. I'm like a man who's
been asleep for the last two years. I'm just coming out of it. I'm
wide awake; and that's why I've come to see that this game and I don't
belong together. You said you'd noticed me ramping round like a man in
prison. That's right! Can you g