it out of the head leaguer by the ear, was to
catch the head bookkeeper, whom the boys didn't like, and whom they
called the black caitiff, alone in the vault some night while he was
putting away his books, slam the door, and turn the combination on
him. Tucked away in a corner of the vault, they had a message for him,
written in red ink, on a sheep's skull, telling him to tremble, that
he was in the hands of the Mysterious League, and that he would be led
at midnight to the torture chamber. I learned afterward that when the
bookkeeper had reached in his desk to get a pen, a few days before, he
had pulled out a cold, clammy, pickled pig's foot, on which was
printed: "Beware! first you will lose a leg!"

I simply mention the Mysterious League in passing. Of course, boys
will be boys, but you mustn't let them be too cussed boyish during
business hours. A slow boy can waste a lot of the time of a
five-thousand-dollar man whose bell he's answering; and a careless boy
can mislay a letter or drop a paper that will ball up the work of the
most careful man in the office.

It's really harder to tell what you're getting when you hire a boy
than when you hire a man. I found that out for keeps a few years ago,
when I took on the Angel Child. He was the son of rich parents, who
weren't quite rich enough to buy chips and sit in the game of the
no-limit millionaires. So they went in for what they called the simple
life. I want to say right here that I'm a great believer in the simple
life, but some people are so blamed simple about it that they're
idiotic. The world is full of rich people who talk about leading the
simple life when they mean the stingy life. They are the kind that are
always giving poorer people a chance to chip in an even share with
them toward defraying the expenses of the charities and the
entertainments which they get up. They call it "affording those in
humbler walks an opportunity to keep up their self-respect," but what
they really mean is that it helps them to keep down their own
expenses.

The Angel Child's mother was one of these women who talk to people
that aren't quite so rich as she in the tone of one who's commending a
worthy charity; but who hangs on the words of a richer woman like a
dog that hopes a piece of meat is going to be thrown at it, and yet
isn't quite sure that it won't get a kick instead. As a side-line, she
made a specialty of trying to uplift the masses, and her husband
furnished the