"No doubt you did," says Piddie, "but you don"t get it."

"That is--er--final, is it?" asks Hartley.

"Quite," says Piddie. "For the present you will continue at the same salary."

"I"ll see you eternally cursed if I do," observes Hartley, without changin" his tone a note.

"Eh?" gasps Piddie.

"Oh, go to thunder, you pin-head!" says Hartley, startin" back for the bond room to collect his eye-shade, cuff protectors and other tools of his trade.

"You--you"re discharged, young man!" Piddie gurgles out throaty.

"Very well," Hartley throws over his shoulder. "Have it that way if you like."

Which is where I gets Piddie"s goat still further on the rampage by lettin" out a chuckle.

"The young whipper-snapper!" growls Piddie.

"Oh, all of that!" says I. "What you going to do besides fire him?

Couldn"t have him indicted under the Lever act, could you?"

Piddie just glares and stalks off. Having been called a pin-head by a bond room cub he"s in no mood to be kidded. So I follows in for a few words with Hartley. You see, I could appreciate the situation even better than Piddie, for I knew more of the facts in the case than he did. For instance, I had happened to be in Old Hickory"s private office when old man Tyler, who"s one of our directors, you know, had wished his only son onto our bond room staff.

He"s kind of a rough old boy, Z. K. Tyler, one of the bottom-rungers who likes to tell how he made his start as fry cook on an owl lunch wagon.

Course, now he has his Broad Street offices and is one of the big noises on the Curb market. Operatin" in motor stocks is his specialty, and when you hear of two or three concerns being merged and the minority holders howlin" about being gypped, or any little deal like that, you can make a safe bet that somewhere in the background is old Z. K. jugglin" the wires and rakin" in the loose shekels. How he gets away with that stuff without makin" the rock pile is by me, but he seems to do it reg"lar.

And wouldn"t you guess he"d be just the one to have finicky ideas as to how his son and heir should conduct himself. Sure thing! I heard him sketchin" some of "em out to Old Hickory.

"The trouble with most young fellows," says he, "is that they"re brought up too soft. Kick "em out and let "em rustle for themselves. That"s what I had to do. Made a man of me. Now take Hartley. He"s twenty-five and has had it easy all his life--city and country home, college, cars to drive, servants to wait on him, and all that. What"s it done for him?

Why, he has no more idea of how to make a dollar for himself than a chicken has of stirring up an omelette.

"Of course, I could take him in with me and show him the ropes, but he couldn"t learn anything worth while that way. He"d simply be a copy-cat.

He"d develop no originality. Besides, I"d rather see him in some other line. You understand, Ellins? Something a little more substantial. Got to find it for himself, though. He"s got to make good on his own hook before I"ll help him any more. So out he goes.

"Ought to have a year or so to pick up the elements of business, though.

So let"s find a place for him here in the Corrugated. No snap job. I want him to earn every dollar he gets, and to live off what he earns. Do him good. Maybe it"ll knock some of the fool notions out of his head.

Oh, he"s got "em. Say, you couldn"t guess what fool idea he came back from college with. Thought he wanted to be a painter. Uh-huh! An artist!

Asked me to set him up in a studio. All because him and a room mate had been daubin" some brushes with oil paints at a summer school they went to during a couple of vacations. Seems a long-haired instructor had been telling Hartley what great talent he had. Huh! I soon cured him of that.

"Go right to it, son," says I. "Paint something you can sell for five hundred and I"ll cover it with a thousand. Until then, not a red cent."

And inside of twenty-four hours he concluded he wasn"t any budding Whistler or Sargent, and came asking what I thought he should tackle first. Eh? Think you could place him somewhere?"

So Old Hickory merely shrugs his shoulders and presses the b.u.t.ton for Piddie. I expect he hears a similar tale about once a month and as a rule he comes across with a job for sonny boy. "Specially when it"s a director that does the askin". Now and then, too, one of "em turns out to be quite a help, and if they"re utterly useless he can always depend on Piddie to find it out and give "em the quick chuck.

As a rule this swift release don"t mean much to the Harolds and Perceys except a welcome vacation while the old man pries open another side entrance in the house of Opportunity, Ltd., which fact Piddie is wise to. But in this ease it"s a different proposition.

"Did you mean it, Tyler, handin" yourself the fresh air that way!" I asks him.

"Absolutely," says he, snappin" some rubber bands around, a neat little bundle.

"Who"d have thought you was a self starter!" says I. "What you going to do now?"

He hunches his shoulders. "Don"t know," says he. "I must find something mighty quick, though."

"Oh, it can"t be as desperate a case as that, can if?" I asks. "You know you"ll get two weeks" pay and with that any single-footed young hick like you ought to----"

"But it happens I"m not single-footed," breaks in Hartley.

"Eh?" says I. "You don"t mean you"ve gone and----"

"Nearly a month ago," says Hartley. "Nicest little girl in the world, too. You must have noticed her. She was on the candy counter in the arcade for a month or so."

"What!" says I. "The one with the honey-colored hair and the bashful behavin" eyes?"

Hartley nods and blushes.

"Say, you are a fast worker when you get going, ain"t you?" says I.

"Picked a Cutie-Sweet right away from all that opposition. But I judge she"s no heiress."

"Edith is just as poor as I am," admits Hartley.

"How about your old man?" I goes on. "What did Z. K. have to say when he heard!"

"Suppose"we don"t go into that," says Hartley. "As a matter of fact, I hung up the "phone just as he was getting his second wind."

"Then he didn"t pull the "bless you, my children," stuff, eh?" I suggests.

"No," says Hartley, grinnin". "Quite the contrary. Anyway, I knew what to expect from him. But say, Torchy, I did have a pretty vague notion of what it costs to run a family these days."

"Don"t you read the newspapers?" says I.

"Oh, I suppose I had glanced at the headlines," says Hartley. "And of course I knew that restaurant prices had gone up, and laundry charges, and cigarettes and so. But I hadn"t shopped for ladies" silk hose, or for shoes, or--er--robes de nuit, or that sort of thing. And I hadn"t tried to hire a three-room furnished apartment. Honest, it"s something awful."

"Yes, I"ve heard something like that for quite a spell now," says I.

"Found that your little hundred and fifty a month wouldn"t go very far, did you?"

"Far!" says Hartley. "Why, it was like taking a one-gallon freezer of ice cream to a Sunday school picnic. Really, it seemed as if there were a thousand hands reaching out for my pay envelope the moment I got it.

I don"t understand how young married couples get along at all."

"If you did," says I, "you"d have a steady job explainin" the miracle to about "steen different Congressional committees. How about Edith? Is she a help--or otherwise?"

"She"s a good sport, Edith is," says Hartley. "She keeps me bucked up a lot. It was her decision that I just pa.s.sed on to Mr. Piddie. We talked it all out last night; how impossible it was to live on my present salary, and what I should say if it wasn"t raised. That is, all but the crude way I put it, and the pin-head part. We agreed, though, that I had to make a break, and that it might as well be now as later on."

"Well, you"ve made it," says I. "What now?"

"We"ve got to think that out," says Hartley.

"The best of luck to you," says I, as he starts toward the elevator.