ped. You're
the best man we ever had out, and--by Jove!--I'll put that into writing
so you can have something to show, and you can use me personally as a
reference when you strike someone else for territory. But, mind you, I
shall have to tell them confidentially the reasons why we had to let you
go."

"Of course! That's only fair," said Jimmy, his sober common sense
impelling him to this admission.

"And--when this tempest blows by, you can have any other territory that
comes open, Jim," volunteered Falkner; "that is--provided that you cut
the jokes out. Surely you've had fun enough by now to last you a
lifetime!"

"I have! I have!" assented Jimmy lugubriously. "I've played the biggest
joke of all on myself. By heck! I've joked myself out of my own job, and
that's the limit. Joe Miller never did that and Mark Twain, Josh
Billings, Bill Nye and George Ade, none of 'em ever reached that height
of humor. The only difference between us is that they got cash for their
jokes, whereas all the pay I get is the boot and the chance to go
yelping down the street with a washboiler tied to my tail. Well, if a
fellow puts grease on the front door steps he shouldn't squeal if he
forgets and falls down himself."

It was not until he stood outside the main entrance to the building that
he had a full sense of homelessness. It was not until then that he knew
what it meant to be without anchorage. It seemed to him that all of
those who hurried past in the winter's twilight had something to do and
that he alone was adrift. He alone had dipped into the depths of folly
and he alone had proved irresponsible. And his employment just then
meant much to him. Subconsciously, he had builded with such confidence.
He was now aware that he had based all upon a permanency of income that
he had conceived to be fixed. His home, his mother's contentment, his
dreams of winning life companionship with the only girl he had ever
loved, seemed to have depended upon the employment he had lost. And now
all was gone! Swept away. He was a most forlorn and melancholy optimist
as he stood there in the early twilight of winter, confusedly
considering his position.

"Well," he thought at last, "they can't keep a good man down," and then
after a moment's further reflection added, "But they can give him an
awful wallop!"

The staring eye of an illuminated clock reminded him that MacDougall
Alley was some distance away and he suffered a peculiar mixture of
sadn