persisted:--

"If I don't do the work to your satisfaction don't pay me a cent."

"I never make that sort of an arrangement; no, sir!"

Unfortunately it had not been Richling's habit to show this pertinacity,
else life might have been easier to him as a problem; but these two
young men, his equals in age, were casting amused doubts upon his
ability to make good his professions. The case was peculiar. He reached
a hand out toward the books.

"Let me look over them for one day; if I don't convince you the next
morning in five minutes that I can straighten them I'll leave them
without a word."

The merchant looked down an instant, and then turned to the man at the
desk.

"What do you think of that, Sam?"

Sam set his elbows upon the desk, took the small end of his pen-holder
in his hands and teeth, and, looking up, said:--

"I don't know; you might--try him."

"What did you say your name was?" asked the other, again facing
Richling. "Ah, yes! Who are your references, Mr. Richmond?"

"Sir?" Richling leaned slightly forward and turned his ear.

"I say, who knows you?"

"Nobody."

"Nobody! Where are you from?"

"Milwaukee."

The merchant tossed out his arm impatiently.

"Oh, I can't do that kind o' business."

He turned abruptly, went to his desk, and, sitting down half-hidden by
it, took up an open letter.

"I bought that coffee, Sam," he said, rising again and moving farther
away.

"Um-hum," said Sam; and all was still.

Richling stood expecting every instant to turn on the next and go. Yet
he went not. Under the dusty front windows of the counting-room the
street was roaring below. Just beyond a glass partition at his back a
great windlass far up under the roof was rumbling with the descent of
goods from a hatchway at the end of its tense rope. Salesmen were
calling, trucks were trundling, shipping clerks and porters were
replying. One brawny fellow he saw, through the glass, take a herring
from a broken box, and stop to feed it to a sleek, brindled mouser. Even
the cat was valued; but he--he stood there absolutely zero. He saw it.
He saw it as he never had seen it before in his life. This truth smote
him like a javelin: that all this world wants is a man's permission to
do without him. Right then it was that he thought he swallowed all his
pride; whereas he only tasted its bitter brine as like a wave it took
him up and lifted him forward bodily. He strode up to the desk beyond
which stood the