Teddy was very sure that he liked everyone in Department 40 except the Gobbler. She alone was a thorn to his flesh. In the first place, the gobble, gobble of her loud voice sent the shivers up and down his back. In the second place, she detested boys and did not hesitate to say so frankly in Teddy’s presence. Then, too, she was continually complaining to Mr. Duffield that she could never find Teddy when she needed him. He was never in one spot for two consecutive minutes. Mr. Duffield usually listened to her complaints in silence, then walked away quickly to hide a smile. He knew, perhaps, better than anyone else Teddy Burke’s rapidly increasing usefulness. Given a commission to perform, Teddy carried it to an end without a mistake. He was quick as lightning when it came to grasping an idea, and rarely had to be told anything twice. Mr. Duffield, who had trained boys in the work of the store, realized that Teddy’s elfish propensities were but an outlet for the high-strung, brilliant temperament of the lad.
Mr. Everett, too, had found time to keep a starboard eye on Teddy. Since the momentous day when Teddy had gone to the Italian woman’s rescue, and later, had pleaded for clemency for his arch-enemy, the fat boy, the buyer had grown daily more interested in the lively lad, and, unobserved, often watched Teddy at his work in the department.
So, although Teddy did not know it, he stood well in the eyes of the men who held his fate as a business boy in their hands.
His store standing was not worrying Teddy one rainy afternoon, however, as he strolled about his department, his black eyes roving over the shining expanse of kitchen-ware as if to discern if there were anything new on the placid surface of 40. Suddenly his black eyes sparkled with the joy of discovery. He made a sudden dive down a cross aisle and, stooping over, garnered an entirely new feather duster from a secret recess formed by two protecting ice-cream freezers. Only a part of the handle had been coyly exposed to view, and it was this same handle that Teddy’s alert eyes had spied from afar.
Sliding the duster behind him, he leaned against a table and took a comprehensive survey of the landscape. Far down the department the Gobbler was holding forth, with many gobbles, upon the beauties and uses of a fireless cooker. Her customer, a meek little man, was either too horrified or too interested to do other than stare in fascination at her rapidly moving lips. Chuckling gleefully, Teddy made a wide detour of the department and brought up at the far end. Sliding his hand under the lower part of a table of granite ware, he extracted a duster, sparsely feathered and bearing evidences of long usage. Even the handle looked worn. He attempted to unscrew the handle from the duster. It stuck. Slipping his hand into his pocket, Teddy drew forth his four-bladed pocket knife, his most cherished possession, and deliberately pried loose the handle of the work-worn duster, then unscrewed it. Placing the new duster where the old had reposed, Teddy gathered up the parts of the now useless weapon for waging war against dust and slid cautiously back to the vicinity of the two sheltering ice-cream freezers.
Bending low, he placed the duster handle at the same coy angle that the other had displayed. Then jamming the other part into his coat pocket, he once more made his way to where the new duster now reposed. Again the pocket knife played a brief but effective part. Teddy chipped off at least an inch of the end of its handle. Then on the wood next the handle that formed a casing for the feathers, he laboriously cut the initials S. H. One more move and his work would be done. Slipping slyly up to the half-open door of Mr. Everett’s office, Teddy peered in. There was no one there. Darting across the floor, he dipped the end of the duster in the ink-well, giving it a lavish baptism of ink. Then, with the innocent air of a young cherub, he trotted back to the place where Sam Hickson kept his duster and carefully placing the new acquisition so that the ink-stained handle would dry, went on his way with the consciousness of having done a good deed. For three weeks Samuel Hickson, the red-haired salesman, had vainly importuned Mr. Duffield for a new duster, while the Gobbler gobbled in triumph, because she had managed to lay hands on a fine one, and boasted that she kept it hidden where no one could find it. Now it was the duster of his pet aversion that he had spied after conducting a still hunt for it for several days, and as his sympathies all lay with Hickson, he decided that the duster should be his.
Teddy felt extremely pleased with himself after making this righteous exchange, and went about grinning so broadly that Samuel Hickson remarked curiously, “I’d like to know what you’ve been up to. Some piece of mischief, I’ll be bound.”
Teddy’s grin only widened. “Wait till to-morrow morning. You’re going to be su’prised.”
“I’ll warrant I shall, if you’ve anything to do with it,” smiled the salesman.