"Say, look here," stammered Jock. "Even if I was Warfield enough to do all that, d'you honestly think--me an advertising manager!--with a salary that Griebler--"

"You nervy little shrimp, go in and win. He'll pay five thousand if he pays a cent. But he wants value for money expended. Now I've tipped you off. You make your killing--"

"Oh, McChesney!" called Bartholomew Berg, glancing round.

"Yes, sir!" said Jock, and stood before him in the same moment.

"Mr. Griebler is looking for a competent, enthusiastic, hard-working man as advertising manager. I've spoken to him of you. I know what you can do. Mr. Griebler might trust my judgment in this, but--"

"I'll trust my own judgment," snapped Ben Griebler. "It's good enough for me."

"Very well," returned Bartholomew Berg suavely. "And if you decide to place your advertising future in the hands of the Berg, Shriner Company--"

"Now look here," interrupted Ben Griebler again. "I'll tie up with you people when you've shaken something out of your cuffs.

I'm not the kind that buys a pig in a poke. We're going to spend money--real money--in this campaign of ours. But I'm not such a come-on as to hand you half a million or so and get a promise in return. I want your plans, and I want 'em in full."

A little exclamation broke from Sam Hupp. He checked it, but not before Berg's curiously penetrating pale blue eyes had glanced up at him, and away again.

"I've told you, Mr. Griebler," went on Bartholomew Berg's patient voice, "just why the thing you insist on is impossible. This firm does not submit advance copy. Every business commission that comes to us is given all the skill, and thought, and enthusiasm, and careful planning that this office is capable of. You know our record. This is a business of ideas. And ideas are too precious, too perishable, to spread in the market place for all to see."

Ben Griebler stood up. His cigar waggled furiously between his lips as he talked.

"I know something else that don't stand spreading in the market place, Berg. And that's money. It's too darned perishable, too."

He pointed a stubby finger at Jock. "Does this fool rule of yours apply to this young fellow, too?"

Bartholomew Berg seemed to grow more patient, more self-contained as the other man's self-control slipped rapidly away.

"It goes for every man and woman in this office, Mr. Griebler.

This young chap, McChesney here, might spend weeks and months building up a comprehensive advertising plan for you. He'd spend those weeks studying your business from every possible angle.

Perhaps it would be a plan that would require a year of waiting before the actual advertising began to appear. And then you might lose faith in the plan. A waiting game is a hard game to play.

Some other man's idea, that promised quicker action, might appeal to you. And when it appeared we'd very likely find our own original idea incorporated in--"

"Say, look here!" squeaked Ben Griebler, his face dully red.

"D'you mean to imply that I'd steal your plan! D'you mean to sit there and tell me to my face--"

"Mr. Griebler, I mean that that thing happens constantly in this business. We're almost powerless to stop it. Nothing spreads quicker than a new idea. Compared to it a woman's secret is a sealed book."

Ben Griebler removed the cigar from his lips. He was stuttering with anger. With a mingling of despair and boldness Jock saw the advantage of that stuttering moment and seized on it. He stepped close to the broad table-desk, resting both hands on it and leaning forward slightly in his eagerness.

"Mr. Berg--I have a plan. Mr. Hupp can tell you. It came to me when I first heard that the Grieblers were going to broaden out.

It's a real idea. I'm sure of that. I've worked it out in detail.

Mr. Hupp himself said it--Why, I've got the actual copy. And it's new. Absolutely. It never--"

"Trot it out!" shouted Ben Griebler. "I'd like to see one idea anyway, around this shop."

"McChesney," said Bartholomew Berg, not raising his voice. His eyes rested on Jock with the steady, penetrating gaze that was peculiar to him. More foolhardy men than Jock McChesney had faltered and paused, abashed, under those eyes. "McChesney, your enthusiasm for your work is causing you to forget one thing that must never be forgotten in this office."

Jock stepped back. His lower lip was caught between his teeth. At the same moment Ben Griebler s.n.a.t.c.hed up his hat from the table, clapped it on his head at an absurd angle and, bristling like a fighting c.o.c.k, confronted the three men.

"I've got a couple of rules myself," he cried, "and don't you forget it. When you get a little spare time, you look up St. Louis and find out what state it's in. The slogan of that state is my slogan, you bet. If you think I'm going to make you a present of the money that it took my old man fifty years to pile up, then you don't know that Griebler is a German name. Good day, gents."

He stalked to the door. There he turned dramatically and leveled a forefinger at Jock. "They've got you roped and tied. But I think you're a comer. If you change your mind, kid, come and see me."

The door slammed behind him.

"Whew!" whistled Sam Hupp, pa.s.sing a handkerchief over his bald spot.

Bartholomew Berg reached out with one great capable hand and swept toward him a pile of papers. "Oh, well, you can't blame him.

Advertising has been a scream for so long. Griebler doesn't know the difference between advertising, publicity, and bunk. He'll learn. But it'll be an awfully expensive course. Now, Hupp, let's go over this Kalamazoo account. That'll be all, McChesney."

Jock turned without a word. He walked quickly through the outer office, into the great main room. There he stopped at the switchboard.

"Er--Miss Grimes," he said, smiling charmingly. "Where's this Mr.

Griebler, of St. Louis, stopping; do you know?"

"Say, where would he stop?" retorted the wise Miss Grimes. "Look at him! The Waldorf, of course."

"Thanks," said Jock, still smiling. And went back to his desk.

At five Jock left the office. Under his arm he carried the flat pasteboard package secured by elastic bands. At five-fifteen he walked swiftly down the famous corridor of the great red stone hotel. The colorful glittering crowd that surged all about him he seemed not to see. He made straight for the main desk with its battalion of clerks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He made straight for the main desk with its battalion of clerks"]

"Mr. Griebler in? Mr. Ben Griebler, St. Louis?"

The question set in motion the hotel's elaborate system of investigation. At last: "Not in."

"Do you know when he will be in?" That futile question.

"Can't say. He left no word. Do you want to leave your name?"

"N-no. Would he--does he stop at this desk when he comes in?"

He was an unusually urbane hotel clerk. "Why, usually they leave their keys and get their mail from the floor clerk. But Mr.

Griebler seems to prefer the main desk."

"I'll--wait," said Jock. And seated in one of the great thronelike chairs, he waited. He sat there, slim and boyish, while the laughing, chattering crowd swept all about him. If you sit long enough in that foyer you will learn all there is to learn about life. An amazing sight it is--that crowd. Baraboo helps swell it, and Spokane, and Berlin, and Budapest, and Pekin, and Paris, and Waco, Texas. So varied it is, so cosmopolitan, that if you sit there patiently enough, and watch sharply enough you will even see a chance New Yorker.

From door to desk Jock's eyes swept. The afternoon-tea crowd, in paradise feathers, and furs, and frock coats swam back and forth.

He saw it give way to the dinner throng, satin-shod, bejeweled, hurrying through its oysters, swallowing unbelievable numbers of cloudy-amber drinks, and golden-brown drinks, and maroon drinks, then gathering up its furs and rushing theaterwards. He was still sitting there when that crowd, its eight o'clock freshness somewhat sullied, its sparkle a trifle dimmed, swept back for more oysters, more cloudy-amber and golden-brown drinks.

At half-hour intervals, then at hourly intervals, the figure in the great chair stirred, rose, and walked to the desk.

"Has Mr. Griebler come in?"

The supper throng, its laugh a little ribald, its talk a shade high-pitched, drifted towards the street, or was wafted up in elevators. The throng thinned to an occasional group. Then these became rarer and rarer. The revolving door admitted one man, or two, perhaps, who lingered not at all in the unaccustomed quiet of the great glittering lobby.

The figure of the watcher took on a pathetic droop. The eyelids grew leaden. To open them meant an almost superhuman effort. The stare of the new night clerks grew more and more hostile and suspicious. A grayish pallor had settled down on the boy's face.