tion of his cigar caught the humorous, quizzical
twinkle in the friendly, keen eyes of his host.

"By jingoes!" he exclaimed, "you know something! You've heard the news.
You know I've been fired."

"Yes, I do know it," answered Martin, with a grin. "I was--rather
curious to learn how you took it. Suppose you tell me all about it. I'm
your friend, you know. We've shared salt. I've been entertained in your
mother's home. Now cut loose."

Jimmy laughed, sobered, shook his head and said, "You see, that's where
the worst of the trouble is unknown. I can't--well, I can't worry Maw.
She doesn't know it yet. I've been trying to get another job before I
broke the news to her and--well, I haven't succeeded! Those worth while
are afraid of me, or else have no opening. For the moment I'm the under
dog; but--I'm not whipped!"

And then he told the whole story to Martin, who listened, asked an
occasional question, smiled as if at some secret thought, and finally
remarked, "Your story agrees with what I've heard. But that man Granger
must have been a vindictive brute to carry it so far. By the way, did
you say your firm gave you the letter he wrote? Let's see it."

Jimmy took it from his pocketbook and gave it to the wise old man, who
stuck glasses on his nose awry, and at an angle well down toward the
point, and scanned the missive.

"Humph! Sounds like that sort of man," he commented, as he handed it
back. "What do you think of it?"

Jim considered the question for a time.

"At first I was sore because he couldn't take a joke. Then I remembered
what kind of a man he appeared to be when I met him, and decided that
it was just his way. Not a fault, you know, but something he couldn't
help. Men are not all alike. Personally I can't keep a grudge. Life's
too short for that. I never try to play, even, in a malicious way. If a
man really hurts me, I 'most always think of his side of it, and if I
decide I'm in the wrong, go to him and say so. If I think I'm in the
right,--just forget him. If he gets the best of me in business, I
congratulate him. That's part of the game. This chap Granger really
never did me much harm and I think maybe that I, without really
intending it, did him quite a lot. So I did the best I could to square
it."

"How?" asked Martin with another one of those quizzical glances of his.

"I wrote to all the newspapers I could get knowledge of out there, and
said that I was the guilty man; that I had played a f