fitting
overcoat.

"So damned good that I don't see how The Sphere ever came to take it.
Greenough, you'll have to find some pretext for firing that young
phenomenon as soon as possible."

Perfectly comprehending his superior's mode of indirect expression the
city editor replied:

"You think so highly of him as that?"

"Not one of our jobs will be safe from him if he once gets his foot
planted," prophesied the other with mock ruefulness. "Do you know," he
added, "I never even asked him for a reference."

"You don't need to," pronounced Mallory, shaking the last wrinkle out of
himself and lighting the cigarette of departure. "He's got it in his
face, if I'm any judge."

Highly elate, Banneker walked on springy pavements all the way to Grove
Street. Fifteen a week! He could live on that. His other income and
savings could be devoted to carrying out Miss Camilla's advice. For he
need not save any more. He would go ahead, fast, now that he had got his
start. How easy it had been.

Entering the Brashear door, he met plain, middle-aged little Miss
Westlake. A muffler was pressed to her jaw. He recalled having heard her
moving about her room, the cheapest and least desirable in the house,
and groaning softly late in the night; also having heard some lodgers
say that she was a typist with very little work. Obviously she needed a
dentist, and presumably she had not the money to pay his fee. In the
exultation of his good luck, Banneker felt a stir of helpfulness toward
this helpless person.

"Oh!" said he. "How do you do! Could you find time to do some typing for
me quite soon?"

It was said impulsively and was followed by a surge of dismay. Typing?
Type what? He had absolutely nothing on hand!

Well, he must get up something. At once. It would never do to disappoint
that pathetic and eager hope, as of a last-moment rescue, expressed in
the little spinster's quick flush and breathless, thankful affirmative.

CHAPTER III

Ten days' leeway before entering upon the new work. To which of scores
of crowding purposes could Banneker best put the time? In his offhand
way the instructive Mallory had suggested that he familiarize himself
with the topography and travel-routes of the Island of Manhattan.
Indefatigably he set about doing this; wandering from water-front to
water-front, invading tenements, eating at queer, Englishless
restaurants, picking up chance acquaintance with chauffeurs, peddlers,
street-fakers