at won't pay here,
you know. Come along to our office and I will see if something can't be
done for you."

"But I should be sorry to give you trouble," stammered Halfdan, whose
native pride, even in his present wretchedness, protested against
accepting a favor from one whom he had been wont to regard as his
inferior.

"Nonsense, my boy. Hurry up, I haven't much time to spare. The office
is only two blocks from here. You don't look as if you could afford to
throw away a friendly offer."

The last words suddenly roused Halfdan from his apathy; for he felt
that they were true. A drowning man cannot afford to make nice
distinctions--cannot afford to ask whether the helping hand that is
extended to him be that of an equal or an inferior. So he swallowed
his humiliation and threaded his way through the bewildering turmoil of
Broadway, by the side of his officious friend.

They entered a large, elegantly furnished office, where clerks with
sleek and severely apathetic countenances stood scribbling at their
desks.

"You will have to amuse yourself as best you can," said Olson. "Mr. Van
Kirk will be here in twenty minutes. I haven't time to entertain you."

A dreary half hour passed. Then the door opened and a tall, handsome
man, with a full grayish beard, and a commanding presence, entered and
took his seat at a desk in a smaller adjoining office. He opened, with
great dispatch, a pile of letters which lay on the desk before him,
called out in a sharp, ringing tone for a clerk, who promptly appeared,
handed him half-a-dozen letters, accompanying each with a brief
direction, took some clean paper from a drawer and fell to writing.
There was something brisk, determined, and business-like in his manner,
which made it seem very hopeless to Halfdan to appear before him as a
petitioner. Presently Olson entered the private office, closing the door
behind him, and a few minutes later re-appeared and summoned Halfdan
into the chief's presence.

"You are a Norwegian, I hear," said the merchant, looking around over
his shoulder at the supplicant, with a preoccupied air. "You want work.
What can you do?"

What can you do? A fatal question. But here was clearly no opportunity
for mental debate. So, summoning all his courage, but feeling
nevertheless very faint, he answered:

"I have passed both examen artium and philosophicum, [2] and got my laud
clear in the former, but in the latter haud on the first point."

Mr. Van Kirk wh