"Mine? What's my part, I'd like to know?" demanded the young man, sharply.

"To pay me for my work." replied Theo, promptly, but with a shadow falling on his face.

"Pay you? Well, if this isn't cheeky! I didn't agree to pay you anything."

"But you knew that I expected to be paid for my work," persisted the boy, the angry colour rising in his cheeks.

"You expected--pshaw! Young man, you've had a lesson that is well worth the time and labour you've expended," remarked the clerk in a tone of great dignity. "Hereafter you will know better than to take anything for granted in business transactions. Good-morning," and he turned his back on the boy and began to write again.

Theodore glanced around the room to see if there was any one on his side, but two of the other clerks were grinning at his discomfiture, and the others pretended not to know anything about the affair. He saw now that he had been foolish to undertake the work as he had done, but he realised that it would not help his case to make a fuss about it. All the same he was unwilling to submit without a protest.

"Next time I'll take care to make my bargain with a gentleman," he said, quietly.

He saw a singular change in the expression of the clerk's face at these words, and as he turned sharply about to leave the office he almost ran into a tall, grey-haired man who had just entered.

"Stop a bit, my boy. I don't understand that remark of yours. What bargain are you going to make with a gentleman?"

The tone of authority, together with the disturbed face of one clerk and the quite evident amus.e.m.e.nt of the others, suddenly enlightened Theodore. He knew instinctively that this man was master here and in a few quick sentences he told what had happened.

The gentleman listened in silence, but his keen, dark eyes took note of the flushed face of one clerk and the amused smiles of his companions.

"Is this boy's story true, Mr. Hammond?" he asked, sternly.

Mr. Hammond could not deny it "It was only a joke, sir," he said, uneasily.

"A joke, was it?" responded his employer. "I am not fond of such jokes." Then he turned again to the boy and inquired, "How much is due you for cleaning the signs?"

"I don't know. I'm just starting in in this business, an' I'm not sure what I ought to charge. Can you tell me, sir?"

The gentleman smiled down into the young face lifted so frankly to his.

"Why, no," he answered, gravely, but with a twinkle in his eyes. "I believe our janitor usually attends to the signs."

"Guess he don't attend to 'em very well, for they were awful dirty,"

remarked the boy. "Took 'me 'most an hour to shine 'em up. Did you notice 'em, sir, as you came in?"

"No, I did not. I'll look at them now," and Theodore followed the gentleman out to the steps.

"Well, you have made a good job of it, certainly," the gentleman said. "The signs haven't shone like that since they were first put there. Quite a contrast to the others on the building. Come back into the office a moment."

He went back to Mr. Hammond's desk and again Theodore followed.

"Mr. Hammond," said the gentleman, quietly, "you are willing of course to pay for your joke. The boy has done his work extremely well. I think he ought to have half a dollar for it."

With anything but a happy expression, Mr. Hammond drew from his pocket a half dollar and handed it to Theodore, who said, not to the clerk, but to the gentleman, "Thank you, sir," and left the office.

But he did not leave the building. He went to the owner of every bra.s.s sign in or on the building and asked to be allowed to make every other sign look as well as those of T.S. Harris, which he had just polished.

Now, T.S. Harris was the owner of the building and the occupants of the other offices considered that it would be wise to follow his example in this matter, so the result was that Theodore spent all the morning over the signs on that one building, and Mr. Harris having set the price, he received twenty-five cents for each sign. He was just putting a finishing rub on the last one when the janitor discovered what had been going on. He came at the boy in a great rage for he wanted no one to have anything to do with the care of the building except those whom he chose to hire.

"You take your traps an' clear out o' this now, an' don't you ever dare to show your face here again," he shouted, angrily. "If I catch ye here again I'll kick ye down the stairs!"

"P'raps Mr. Harris will have a word to say about that," replied Theodore, coolly, for in one and another of the offices he had picked up enough to convince him that the word of Mr. Harris was law in that building. Then he added, in a much more friendly tone,

"Now, look here, mister. You're too busy a man to be cleaning signs--'course you are. You've got to hire somebody t' do it an' the'

won't anybody do it better or fer less money 'n I will. I'm a-goin' to make a reg'lar business of cleanin' bra.s.ses all 'round this neighbourhood, an' if you'll stan' by me an' help me fix it all right with the other bosses 'bout here--I'll see 't you don't lose anythin'

by it."

The janitor's fierce frown had slowly faded as the boy spoke. Nothing pleased him so much as to be considered a person of influence, and had Theodore been ever so shrewd he could have adopted no other line of argument that would so quickly and effectually have changed an enemy into a friend as did this that he hit upon merely by chance. The man stepped down to the sidewalk and looked up at the signs with a critical air.

"Wai'," he answered, slowly, "I ain't a-goin' to deny that you've done your work well--yes a sight better'n any of the lazy rascals I've been hiring, an' if you could be depended on now, I d'know but what I might's well give the work to you as to anybody else. Of course, as you say, 'tain't my place to do servant's work like bra.s.s cleanin'."

"Of course not," a.s.sented Theo, promptly.

"But then," the man went on, "if I should speak for ye t' the janitors of the other buildings 'long here, 'n' get ye a big line o' custom, 'course I sh'ld have a right t' expect a--er--a sort o' commission on the profits, so to speak?"

"Oh!" replied Theodore, rather blankly. "What _is_ a commission, anyhow?"

The man explained.

"And how much of a commission would you expect?" questioned the boy.

The janitor made a mental calculation. Here on this one building, the boy had cleaned seven signs. That made a dollar and seventy-five cents that he had earned in one morning. Of course he would not often get so much out of one building, but the man saw that there were good possibilities in this line of work.

"S'pose we say ten per cent.--ten cents out of every dollar?" he ventured, with a keen glance at the boy.

"You mean ten per cent, on all the work that I get through you?" Theo replied.

"Oh no--on _all_ the work of this sort that you do. That's no more'n fair since you'll owe your start to me."

"Not much! I owe my start to myself, an' I'll make no such bargain as that," answered Theo, decidedly. "I'm willin' to give you ten per cent. on all that I get through you, but not a cent more. You see I'm bound to put this thing through whether you help me or not," he added, quietly.

The janitor saw that he had been too grasping and hastened to modify his demands lest he lose his commissions altogether.

"Well, well," he said, soothingly, "we won't quarrel over a little difference like that. Let it be as you say, ten per cent. on all the jobs I get for ye, an' there's the janitor of the Laramie Building on the steps this minute. Come along with me an' I'll give ye a start over there--or, first--ain't there a little matter to attend to," he added, with an insinuating smile. "You'll settle your bills fast as they come due, of course, an' you've got a snug little sum out of my building here."

"Yes, but no thanks to you for that," replied Theo, but as the man's face darkened again, he added, "but never mind, I'll give you the commission on this work since it's in your building," and he handed eighteen cents to the janitor, who slipped it into his pocket with an abstracted air as if unconscious of what he was doing.

The result of the man's recommendation to his brother janitor was that Theodore secured the promise of all the bra.s.s cleaning in the Laramie Building also, and that with one or two small jobs kept him busy until dark when he went home with a light heart and with the sum of three dollars and fourteen cents in his pocket. To be sure he had worked hard all day to earn it, but Theodore never had been lazy and he was willing enough to work hard now.

He carried home some oranges as a special treat that night, for now he took his supper regularly with Nan who was glad to make a return in this fashion for the help he was continually giving her in carrying out her food supplies, as well as many other ways.

As they arose from the supper-table, Theodore said, "I'll go across an' see how Jimmy got on to-day, at the stand," but even as he spoke there came a low knock at the door and there stood Jimmy--no longer proud and happy as he had been in the morning, but with red eyes and a face full of trouble.

"Why, Jimmy, what's the matter?" cried Nan and Theo, in one voice.

"Come in," added Nan, kindly pulling him in and gently pushing him toward a chair.