Harry’s woe-begone face lightened a little at Miss Welch’s disrespectful reference to the formidable Mr. Barton.
“Oh, see the gloom break up!” she exclaimed in pretended astonishment. “I guess it’ll be a nice day after all. How about it, Kiddy?”
“I guess it will,” smiled Harry. Then he sighed. “I couldn’t help being late, Miss Welch. First an old man asked me where the perfumes were. I directed him to them, but he said I’d have to go with him to show him. I was afraid he’d report me, so I went with him. Then, just as I was coming through the book department, I bumped into a man with some books. The books fell to the floor and I stooped to pick them up. Then I came here as fast as ever I could, but I was ten minutes late. Now I’ve got three demerits on my card, and I wanted to keep it so nice—and—clean.” Harry’s voice broke.
“Never mind, Kiddy, never mind,” comforted Miss Welch. “Just let me put you wise, though. Don’t have nothing to do with these old fuss-budgets that want you to go on a personally conducted tour of the store with ’em. Answer ’em politely if they ask you anything, and then beat it out of their vicinity as fast as you can. They won’t report you. They wouldn’t know you from Adam if they saw you two minutes afterward. Course, you couldn’t help but pick up those books. You’re all right, youngster, and you just keep on being the little gentleman you are, no matter what fifty Smarty Bartys have to say.
“Now, cheer up. I’m goin’ to tell you something funny. ’Bout half an hour ago, while you was up to school, a long, thin, solemn-looking woman came up to the desk and says in a kind of a scared voice, ‘Is this the exchange desk?’
“‘It is,’ says I, ‘what can I do for you?’
“She hands me a big package and says, ‘I bought two little gold baby-pins here day before yesterday on a transfer, and when they come home they was two pairs of men’s overalls. They wasn’t no pins at all.’ Maybe I didn’t laugh. I couldn’t help it. When the woman saw me laugh, she grinned a kind of a sickly grin, too. Now, wasn’t that funny?”
Miss Welch leaned back in her chair and indulged in a fresh burst of laughter. “Ha, ha! That certainly was a good one on the Transfer Department,” she chuckled. “They certainly changed things around that time.”
Harry forgot his troubles and joined in the laugh. The sunshine cast by the good-natured exchange clerk had scattered his gloom for the time being, at least. “I’ll try harder than ever,” he thought, setting his boyish mouth firmly. “He sha’n’t give me any more demerits. I guess everybody has to learn things by experience.”
He was greatly surprised and not a little perplexed that afternoon when Mr. Barton beckoned to him from one of the aisles and said in an actually pleasant tone, “45, I want you to go on an errand. Here is a pass. Show this to the time-keeper as you go out. Come with me and I will tell you what you are to do.” Beckoning to Harry, he strode down the aisle, the boy at his heels. At the extreme end of the jewelry department was a small room in which Mr. Barton kept his personal effects. It had formerly been used by the buyer of the jewelry as an office. Now it held nothing but empty boxes and odds and ends that had drifted into it. Unlocking a small closet, Mr. Barton took from it a good-sized pasteboard box. “Here, boy, I want you to take this to 1855 Commerce Street. It goes to Jacoby’s tailor shop. Here’s his card. There’s a note in the box. Just ask for Mr. Jacoby, and say that Mr. Barton sent you. It won’t take you long.”