look at him."

"I don't know. I didn't get a second look at him; but the way he pulled
out that wad--I charged him four bucks for a dollar-'n'-a-half room.
And--"

"S-st!" warned the boy.

It was Jan re-entering the office.

"What's wrong?" demanded the clerk.

"Paper and envelope, please," said Jan.

"Oh!" The clerk looked relieved and passed them over. Jan took out a
carpenter's thick-leaded pencil and wrote on the sheet of paper: "You
must buy some things for the trip on the boat." He looked at the clerk
and then at the boy, and went out into the hall, folded one ten-dollar
bill and two twenty-dollar bills inside the sheet, sealed and addressed
the envelope, and brought it in to the boy.

"You take this up to the lady. Give it to her and hurry away before she
can open it. And if you are back in two minutes--"

The boy was back in less time. Jan gave him half a dollar and passed out
into the street.

THE PORT ROCK BOAT

The Port Rock boat was due _to_ leave her dock. The first mate made his
way to the upper deck. He found his captain in the pilot-house, studying
the barometer.

"Freight all aboard, sir."

"All right," nodded the captain; "but did you hear about the storm flags
being up?"

"So I heard, sir."

"M-m! Close that door. It's cold." The mate closed the door; but almost
immediately the captain raised a window and gazed down the harbor. "It
looks bad to me," he said after a while.

"It is a bad-looking night," assented the mate.

"A wicked night!" barked the captain; and gathering one end of his
moustache between his teeth, began to chew on it.

The mate pursed his lips. "What will I do, sir?"

The captain stopped chewing his moustache. "It all comes down to dollars
and cents. Use our judgment and stay tied up to the dock here and it's
go hunt another berth. Do you want to hunt another job?"

"Not me. I got a family to look after."

"N' me. We'll put out."

"All right, sir." The mate descended to the wharf. "In with that
freight runway and plank!" he called out to the waiting longshoremen.
"And you"--a colored steward was at his elbow--"tell 'em all aboard on
the dock and all ashore on the boat that's goin' ashore."

The steward voiced the mate's instructions; the last passenger came
aboard and the last friend went ashore. The gangplank was hauled in, the
lines cast off and the Port Rock steamer slid out from her slip.

She was well down the harbor before Jan took a piece of p