“Did you say what I told you to say?” she asked sharply.
“Yes, Miss Welch, I did.”
“Good for you. If he has any sense he’ll let you alone, or Margaret Welch’ll take a hand in things. You’ll have to watch yourself harder than ever, Harry. He won’t have your kind of a boy around.”
“Miss Welch, there aren’t many of the aisle managers in the store like Mr. Barton, are there?”
“No, indeed,” was Miss Welch’s vigorous reply. “Most of them are as nice men as you’d care to meet anywhere. There’s only about three or four mistakes in the aisle-man bunch here, and Smarty’s one of ’em. He’s been here a long while and served in almost every department in the store. If there was to be a contest to find out who’s the meanest man in the store, everybody’d vote for his crabship. Do I love him? Well, not so you could notice it. Does anyone else? Nay, nay, my child. Here he comes, bless him. Run along, or he’ll think you’re telling me everything you know.”
Harry trotted obediently down the aisle, and wandering into the juvenile section of the book department, began reading, with longing eyes, the titles on the gaily-colored jackets of a table of boys’ books. He was never tired of exploring the book department. Whenever there was a lull in the business of the exchange desk, he slipped across the space that divided the books from the jewelry department to spend a few rapturous minutes among the volumes he loved.
On several occasions he had encountered the man with whom he had collided on that first, disastrous school morning. By this time he knew him to be Mr. Rexford, the buyer of the books. Miss Welch had given him that information. Mr. Rexford had invariably smiled at him in a kindly fashion that quite won the boy to him. Harry never saw him without wishing secretly that he had been placed in the book department. It would be the height of happiness to work for such a man as Mr. Rexford.
As he stood eagerly devouring the titles with book-hungry eyes, a deep, pleasant voice at his elbow said, “Well, my boy, it’s evident that you like to read.”
Harry swung about. Mr. Rexford stood looking at him, a half smile on his handsome, clean-cut face.
“Oh, yes, sir. I’d rather read than do anything else. I’ve read some of these books. I get books from the Public Library.”