The man leaned forward, too,
so that Jack's face was almost under his.

Mr. Gifford's answer had disappointed Jack and irritated him.

"You did well!" said Mr. Gifford.

Before he had time to think Jack said:

"A dollar and a half? Well, if you knew anything about potatoes, you
wouldn't have let them go for a dollar and a half a barrel!"

"What do you know about potatoes?" growled the tall man, leaning an
inch lower, and frowning at Jack's interruption.

"More than you or Mr. Gifford seems to," said Jack desperately. "The
crop's going to be short. I know how it is up _our_ way."

"Tell us what you know!" said the tall man sharply; and Mr. Gifford
drew nearer with an expression of keen interest upon his face.

"They're all poor," said Jack, and then he remembered and repeated,
better than he could have done if he had made ready beforehand, all he
had heard the two men say in the Hotel Dantzic reading-room, and all he
had heard in Crofield and Mertonville. He had heard the two men call
each other by name, and he ended with:

"Didn't you sell your lot to Murphy & Scales? They're buying
everywhere."

"That's just what I did," said the tall man. "I wish I hadn't; I'll go
right out and buy!" and away he went.

"Buy some on my account," said Mr. Gifford, as the other man left the
store. "See here, my boy, I don't want to hire anybody. But you seem
to know about potatoes. Probably you're just from a farm. What else
do you know? What can you do?"

"A good many things," said Jack, and to his own astonishment he spoke
out clearly and confidently.

"Oh, you can?" laughed Mr. Gifford. "Well, I don't need you, but I
need an engineer. I wish you knew enough to run a small steam-engine."

"Why, I can run a steam-engine," said Jack. "That's nothing. May I
see it?"

Mr. Gifford pointed at some machinery behind the counter, near where he
stood, and at the apparatus in the show-window.

"It's a little one that runs the coffee-mills and the printing-press,"
he said. "You can't do anything with it until a machinist mends
it--it's all out of order, I'm told."

"Perhaps I can," said Jack. "A boy who's learned the blacksmith's
trade ought to be able to put it to rights."

Without another word, Jack went to work.

"Nothing wrong here, Mr. Gifford," he said in a minute. "Where are the
screw-driver, and the monkey-wrench, and an oil-can?"

"Well, well!" exclaimed Mr. Gifford, as he sent a man for the too