se and good king. But most unaccountably, as he gazed, it seemed to
him that the great Ram-tah had opened those long-closed eyes; opened
them full for a moment; then allowed the left eye to close swiftly.

XI

The day began with placid routine. Breede did his accustomed two-hours'
monologue. And no one molested Bean. No one appeared to know that he was
other than he seemed, and that big things were going forward. Tully
ignored him. Markham, who had the day before called him "Old man!"
whistled obliviously as they brushed past each other in the hall. No
directors called him in to tell him that would never do with _them_.

He was grateful for the lull. He couldn't be "stirred up" that way every
day. And he needed to gather strength against Breede when Breede should
discover that exquisite joke of the flapper's. He suspected that the
flapper wouldn't find it funny to keep the thing from poor old Pops more
than a few days longer.

"I'll be drawing my last pay next Saturday," he told himself.

"Telephone for Boston Baked," called the office-boy wit, late in the
afternoon.

Bulger looked sympathetic.

"Same trouble I have," he confided as Bean passed him, "Take 'em on once
and they bother the life out of you."

"You'd never believe," came the voice of the flapper. "I found the
darlingest old sideboard with claw-feet yesterday over on Fourth Avenue.
He wants two hundred and eighty, but they're all robbers, and I just
perfectly mean to make him come down five or ten dollars. Every little
counts. You leave it to me."

"Sure! You fix it all up!"

"And maybe we won't want fumed oak in the dining-room--maybe a rich
mahogany stain. Would that suit? I'm only thinking of you."

"I'll leave all that to you; you'll perfectly well manage."

"I just perfectly darling well knew you'd say that; and I'm sending you
down a car--"

"A what? Car?" This was even more alarming than the darling old
sideboard.

"Just a little old last year's car. Poor old Pops would give it to me
now if I asked him--but it's just as well to have it away in case Moms
could ever make him change his mind, only of course she perfectly well
can't do anything of the sort. But anyway I'm sending it to that shop
around the corner in the street below you, and they'll hold it there to
your order. You never can tell; we might need it suddenly some time, and
anyway you ought to have it, don't you see, because I'm just perfectly
giving it to you this m