een
breakfast and dinner was quite six months, yet the dinner hour itself
was the shortest sixty minutes he had ever known. Mr. Keeler had not yet
returned to his labors, so there was no instruction in bookkeeping;
but his grandfather gave him letters to file and long dreary columns of
invoice figures to add. Twice Captain Zelotes went out and then, just
as Albert settled back for a rest and breathing spell, Issachar Price
appeared, warned apparently by some sort of devilish intuition, and
invented "checking up stock" and similar menial and tiresome tasks to
keep him uncomfortable till the captain returned. The customers who came
in asked questions concerning him and he was introduced to at least
a dozen citizens of South Harniss, who observed "Sho!" and "I want to
know!" when told his identity and, in some instances, addressed him as
"Bub," which was of itself a crime deserving capital punishment.

That night, as he lay in bed in the back bedroom, he fell asleep facing
the dreary prospect of another monotonous imprisonment the following
day, and the next day, and the day after that, and after that--and
after that--and so on--and on--and on--forever and ever, as long as
life should last. This, then, was to be the end of all his dreams, this
drudgery in a country town among these commonplace country people. This
was the end of his dreams of some day writing deathless odes and sonnets
or thrilling romances; of treading the boards as the hero of romantic
drama while star-eyed daughters of multi-millionaires gazed from the
boxes in spellbound rapture. This . . . The thought of the star-eyed
ones reminded him of the girl who had come into the office the afternoon
of his first visit to that torture chamber. He had thought of her many
times since their meeting and always with humiliation and resentment. It
was his own foolish tongue which had brought the humiliation upon him.
When she had suggested that he might be employed by Z. Snow and Co. he
had replied: "Me? Work HERE! Well, I should say NOT!" And all the time
she, knowing who he was, must have known he was doomed to work there. He
resented that superior knowledge of hers. He had made a fool of himself
but she was to blame for it. Well, by George, he would NOT work there!
He would run away, he would show her, and his grandfather and all the
rest what was what. Night after night he fell asleep vowing to run away,
to do all sorts of desperate deeds, and morning after morning