in which I am exceedingly
interested, and when we have set our minds at rest on that point, I will
give myself the pleasure of listening to whatever recommendations you
may offer as to your fitness to take the place of the retiring
management."

"Oh!" exclaimed Dennis as he went through an absurd pantomime of
punching himself, "an' is it awake you are, Dennis Muldoon?"

At this the lady, with a cordial smile, indicated that the interview was
at an end, and as she turned to depart, said: "You will come, then,
to-morrow night?"

And Dennis, hat in hand, with an unmistakable deference of attitude and
demeanor, cheerily responded with a query that required no further
answer than a rosy acknowledgment:

"Will a duck swim?"

CHAPTER VIII

On the succeeding morning it seemed to the foreman of the shipping
department of the publishers that his new marker did not manifest the
same enthusiasm for his work which had distinguished his earlier
efforts.

It looked to him as if Dennis handled his paint-brush with the mien of
one who considered his occupation a diversion rather than a means of
livelihood.

As the day advanced and Dennis located an "e" in the spot designed for
an "i," and concluded an address with Detroit in place of Duluth, the
foreman was more than ever convinced that something was wrong, and asked
the young man if he was not feeling well.

"Sure!" exclaimed Dennis, a degree too cheerily, the foreman thought, in
view of his delinquencies with the brush, "sure; but why do you ask?"

"Well," returned the foreman, "iv'ry thing's wid you this mornin' but
yure head," and he pointed out several blunders which Dennis had made.

"Sure, an' I'm sorry for that," he said with blushing contriteness; "it
will not happen again."

The foreman, however, had told the truth only in part, for Dennis had
left not only his head behind him, but a considerable portion of his
heart.

All day he continued to think about the sweet-faced woman who had
listened with such gratifying attention to the story, and more than
once, in his agreeable preoccupation, had he noted an impulse to
substitute the address she had provided for the one demanded by the
shipping invoices.

"To-night at eight," he repeated to himself over and over, like the
refrain of a popular ballad, invariably concluding, by way of chorus:
"Oh, I'll be there; oh, I'll be there."

Therefore, as soon as his day's duties were over, Dennis speeded to
Bax