here
is now.

I don't want to make any excuses, but, true as you're living, if I
turned in at ten I might just as well set up business in the Fiji
Islands. It's about that time the evening really begins. How do
you work it yourself? I wish you'd tell me how you get in on time,
looking fresh as a daisy. And what sort of an alarm-clock do you
use? I bought one the other day as big as a snare-drum, and the
thing never made a dent. Then I tried having Nora call me, but I
only woke up long enough to tell her to get out and went to sleep
again. If your system isn't patented I wish you'd tell me what it
is. In the mean while, I'm going to sit up all night if I can't
get up any other way.

Because I'm going to make the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves
on time, beginning to-morrow morning. You watch me. And I'll make
up for the time I've overdrawn on lunches by getting back in
twenty minutes after this. As for errands--you take the time when
Farnsworth sends me out again.

You're dead right in all you said, and if I can't make good in
the next few months I won't wait for Farnsworth to fire me--I'll
fire myself. But that isn't going to happen. The livest man in
that office is going to be

Yours truly,
DONALD PENDLETON, JR.

Don addressed the letter to the office, mailed it, and went home to
dress. But before going upstairs he called to Nora.

"Nora," he said, "you know that I'm in business now?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you wouldn't like to see me fired, would you?"

"Oh, Lord, sir!" gasped Nora.

"Then you get me up to-morrow morning at seven o'clock, because if I'm
late again that is just what is going to happen. And you know what Dad
would say to that."

The next morning Don stepped briskly into the office five minutes
ahead of Miss Winthrop.

CHAPTER XV

COST

It was quite evident that Farnsworth had something in mind; for,
beginning that week, he assigned Don to a variety of new tasks--to
checking and figuring and copying, sometimes at the ticker, sometimes
in the cashier's cage of the bond department, sometimes on the curb.
For the most part, it was dull, uninspiring drudgery of a clerical
nature, and it got on Don's nerves. Within a month he had reached the
conclusion that this was nothing short of a conspiracy on Farnsworth's
part to tempt him to resign. It had the effec