he
haughty stranger.

"Eh?" No letters can represent the nasal intonation of this syllabic
inquiry, and no words the supreme indifference of the boy's tone.

"Is Mr. Fleming in? I wish to see him!" Cameron's voice was loud and
imperious.

"Say, boys," said a lanky youth, with a long, cadaverous countenance
and sallow, unhealthy complexion, illumined, however, and redeemed to
a certain extent by black eyes of extraordinary brilliance, "it is the
Prince of Wales!" The drawling, awe-struck tones, in the silence that
had fallen, were audible to all in the immediate neighbourhood.

The titter that swept over the listeners brought the hot blood to
Cameron's face. A deliberate insult a Highlander takes with calm. He is
prepared to deal with it in a manner affording him entire satisfaction.
Ridicule rouses him to fury, for, while it touches his pride, it leaves
him no opportunity of vengeance.

"Can you tell me if Mr. Fleming is in?" he enquired again of the boy
that stood scanning him with calm indifference. The rage that possessed
him so vibrated in his tone that the lanky lad drawled again in a
warning voice:

"Slide, Jimmy, slide!"

Jimmy "slid," but towards the counter.

"Want to see him?" he enquired in a tone of brisk impertinence, as if
suddenly roused from a reverie.

"I have a letter for him."

"All right! Hand it over," said Jimmy, fully conscious that he was the
hero of more than usual interest.

Cameron hesitated, then passed his letter over to Jimmy, who, reading
the address with deliberate care, winked at the lanky boy, and with a
jaunty step made towards a door at the farther end of the room. As he
passed a desk that stood nearest the door, a man who during the last few
minutes had remained with his head down, apparently so immersed in
the papers before him as to be quite unconscious of his surroundings,
suddenly called out, "Here, boy!"

Jimmy instantly assumed an air of respectful attention.

"A letter for Mr. Fleming," he said.

"Here!" replied the man, stretching out his hand.

He hurriedly glanced through the letter.

"Tell him there is no vacancy at present," he said shortly.

The boy came back to Cameron with cheerful politeness. The "old man's"
eye was upon him.

"There is no vacancy at present," he said briefly, and turned away as if
his attention were immediately demanded elsewhere by pressing business
of the Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage Company.

For answer, Cameron