“What’s on your mind, son?” she asked, noting the boy’s timid scrutiny. “Cheer up. Don’t look so sad. That old grouch, Barton, is enough to give anyone the blues, but just remember he can’t eat you, or kill you, or do anything worse than scold you. He never opens his mouth to say a pleasant word. We’re all used to him down here.”
“He—he—doesn’t like me,” stammered Harry.
“He doesn’t like anybody. He even hates himself,” declared the girl.
“He thinks I called him a crank,” Harry colored slightly, as he made this admission.
“When did all this happen?” The sympathetic exchange clerk elevated her eyebrows in surprise.
“Yesterday morning. I was waiting in the employment office to see Mr. Keene. There was another boy sitting there waiting, too. Mr. Barton was in the office talking to Mr. Keene. When he left the office he looked so cross that the boy said, ‘some crank,’ and he heard it. He thought I said it.”
“Good for the boy that said it,” laughed Miss Welch. “I’m glad smarty Barton heard it. Now he knows what other people think of him. I’m sorry you got blamed, though. Why don’t you tell him you didn’t say it?”
Harry shook his head. In his recital of the incident he had been careful not to mention Teddy as the real transgressor. “I’d rather not say anything. Maybe he’ll forget about it if he sees me trying hard to please him.”
“You couldn’t please him if you gave him a million dollars,” was the discouraging information. “But never mind, kid. I’ll see that he don’t bite your head off. I’m not afraid of him. He isn’t afraid of me, neither,” she added with a giggle. “Still, it takes the Irish to hand him one, once in a while.”
“Are you Irish?” asked Harry.