's books yet, but I can do it."

The merchant's response was cold and prompt. He did not look at
Richling, but took a sample vial of molasses from a dirty mantel-piece
and lifted it between his eyes and the light, saying:--

"You can't do any such thing. I don't want you."

"Sir," said Richling, so sharply that the merchant looked round, "if you
don't want me I don't want you; but you mustn't attempt to tell me that
what I say is not true!" He had stepped forward as he began to speak,
but he stopped before half his words were uttered, and saw his folly.
Even while his voice still trembled with passion and his head was up, he
colored with mortification. That feeling grew no less when his offender
simply looked at him, and the man at the desk did not raise his eyes. It
rather increased when he noticed that both of them were young--as young
as he.

"I don't doubt your truthfulness," said the merchant, marking the effect
of his forbearance; "but you ought to know you can't come in and take
charge of a large set of books in the midst of a busy season, when
you've never kept books before."

"I don't know it at all."

"Well, I do," said the merchant, still more coldly than before. "There
are my books," he added, warming, and pointed to three great canvassed
and black-initialled volumes standing in a low iron safe, "left only
yesterday in such a snarl, by a fellow who had 'never kept books, but
knew how,' that I shall have to open another set! After this I shall
have a book-keeper who has kept books."

He turned away.

Some weeks afterward Richling recalled vividly a thought that had struck
him only faintly at this time: that, beneath much superficial severity
and energy, there was in this establishment a certain looseness of
management. It may have been this half-recognized thought that gave him
courage, now, to say, advancing another step:--

"One word, if you please."

"It's no use, my friend."

"It may be."

"How?"

"Get an experienced book-keeper for your new set of books"--

"You can bet your bottom dollar!" said the merchant, turning again and
running his hands down into his lower pockets. "And even he'll have as
much as he can do"--

"That is just what I wanted you to say," interrupted Richling, trying
hard to smile; "then you can let me straighten up the old set."

"Give a new hand the work of an expert!"

The merchant almost laughed out. He shook his head and was about to say
more, when Richling