vaguely of big
profits; but he's got nothing practical. I shipped him off."

"But," says Mr. Robert, "I think he was promised that his schemes should
have a consideration by the board."

"Very well," says Willis G. jaunty. "I'll give 'em a report next
meeting. Wednesday, isn't it? Hardly worth wasting their time over,
though."

And here I'd been boostin' the Rowley proposition to Mr. Robert good and
hard, almost gettin' him enthusiastic over it! I was smeared, that's
all! My first stab at makin' myself useful in my new swing-chair job has
been brushed aside as a beginner's bungle; and there sits Mr. Robert,
prob'ly wonderin' if he hadn't made a mistake in takin' me off the gate!

I stares at a row of empty pigeonholes for a solid hour after that, not
doin' a blamed thing but race my thinkin' gears tryin' to find out where
I was at. This dummy act that I'd been let in for might be all right for
some; but it didn't suit me. I've got to have action in mine.

So, long before quittin' time, I slams the desk cover down and pikes out
on Rowley's trail. He might be a dead duck; but I wanted to know how and
why. I had his address all right, and it didn't take me long to locate
him in a fifth-story loft down on lower Sixth-ave. It's an odd joint
too, with a cot bed in one corner, a work bench along the avenue side, a
cook-stove in the middle, and a kitchen table where the coffeepot was
crowded on each side by a rack of test tubes. Old Rowley himself, with
his sleeves rolled up, is sittin' in a rickety arm chair peelin'
potatoes. He's grouchy too.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" says he. "Well, you might just as well trot right
back to the Corrugated Trust and tell 'em that Old Hen Rowley don't give
two hoots for their whole outfit."

"I take it you didn't get on so well with Mr. Briscoe?" says I.

"Briscoe!" he grunts savage. "Who could talk business to a smart Alec
like that! He knew it all before I'd begun. You'd think I was trying to
sell him a gold brick. All right! We'll see what the Bethlehem people
have to say."

"What?" says I. "Before you get the final word from us?"

"I've had it," says he. "Briscoe is final enough for me."

"You're easy satisfied," says I, "or else you're easy beat. I didn't
take you for a quitter, either."

Say, that got to him. "Quitter, eh!" says he. "See here, Son, how long
do you think I've been plugging at this thing? Nine years. And for the
last four I've been giving it all my time, day i