h mackerel and blueberry pie district.
One of these long, lanky specimens, he is, with a little stoop to his
shoulders, ginger-colored hair and mustache, and a pair of calm,
sea-blue eyes that look deep and serious.

I finds him pacin' deliberate up and down the waitin' room at
eight-fifty-three A.M., which is two minutes ahead of my schedule for
openin' the Corrugated for gen'ral business. His overcoat and a
crumpled mornin' paper are on the bench; so I figures he's been there
quite some time. Course, it might have been a stray Rube of most any
name; but I thinks I'll take a chance.

"Mornin', Ira," says I.

"Howdy," says he, as natural as if this was a reg'lar habit of ours.
Which puts it up to me to find out if I'm right, after all.

"Mr. Higgins, ain't it?" says I.

He nods.

"When did you get in?" says I.

"About six," says he.

"Come down by train or boat?" says I.

"Train," says he.

"You've had breakfast, I suppose?" I goes on.

Another nod. Oh, yes, for an economical converser, he was about the
most consistent breath saver I ever tackled. You could easy go hoarse
havin' a little chat with him. You'd need lots of time too; for after
every one of my bright little sallies Ira looks me over in that quiet,
thoughtful way of his, then counts fifty to himself, and fin'lly
decides whether it'll be a grunt or just a nod. Gettin' information
out of him was like liftin' a trunk upstairs one step at a time. I
manages to drag out, though, that he'd been hangin' around ever since
the buildin' was opened by the day watchman at seven o'clock.

"Well," says I, "Mr. Robert was lookin' for you to blow in today; but
not quite so early. It'll be near ten before he shows up. Better come
inside and have a comf'table chair."

He takes that proposition up with himself, fin'lly passin' on it
favorable; and from then on he sits there, with never a move or a
blink, watchin' solemn all the maneuvers that a battery of lady typists
has to go through before settlin' down for a forenoon's work. I'll bet
he could tell you too, a month from now, just how many started with
gum, and which ones renewed their facial scenery with dabs from the
chamois.

So you can see why I was some relieved when Mr. Robert arrives and
takes him off my hands. I knew from what he'd said the day before that
he'd planned to have about a half-hour interview with Mr. Higgins; but
when the noon hour struck: Ira was still there. At one-fiftee