others:

"That fellow is a good sort. He has sand in his gizzard. When he comes
back set him at work at something or other--several things in succession
in fact--and find out what he can do."

Such was Guilford Duncan's mustering into the new service of work.

VIII

ON DUTY

During the next four or five days Guilford Duncan was kept busy with
various small employments, some of them out of doors and some of them in
the office. During this time Captain Hallam did not again engage him in
conversation, but Duncan knew that the man of business was closely
observing his work. He was not slow to discover that he was giving
satisfaction. He saw that with each day the work assigned him was of a
kind that required a higher intelligence than that of the day before.

Every evening the cashier paid him his day's wages, thus reminding him
that he was not a salaried employee of the house, but a man working for
wages from day to day.

Out of his first wages he had purchased a change of very cheap
underwear, a towel, and a cake of soap. Every morning about daylight he
went to a secluded spot on the levee, for a scrub and a swim. Then he
washed out his towel and placed it with his other small belongings, in a
storage place he had discovered in a great lumber pile.

One morning when he entered the office Captain Hallam gave him several
business letters to answer from memoranda scribbled upon them by clerks
or others. He gave him also a memorandum in his own handwriting, saying:

"Cut that down if you can and make a telegram of it. I'll be back in
half an hour or so. Have it ready for me."

The case was this: A huge steamboat lay at the levee, loaded almost to
the water's edge with grain which Captain Hallam was more than anxious
to hurry to New Orleans to meet a sudden temporary and very marked
advance in that market. That morning the boat had been "tied up"--as the
phrase went--that is to say, she had been legally attached for debt, at
the suit of a firm in St. Louis. Until the attachment should be removed
the boat must lie at Cairo, in charge of a sheriff's officer. Captain
Hallam wished to secure her immediate release, and to that end he
purposed sending the telegram.

When he returned to the office Duncan handed him for inspection and
signature the letters he had written.

"Here is the telegram, also," he said, "but, if you will pardon the
impertinence, I think you had better not send it--at least in the form
yo