"I don't know whether I do or not," Quin declared stoutly. "I don't know anything about it. But one thing's certain—I'm not going to take another fellow's job, when he's holding out for better conditions, until I know whether those better conditions are due him or not."
Mr. Bangs's fish eyes regarded him with glittering disfavor.
"Perhaps you would prefer an office job?" he suggested with cold insolence. "I need some one to brush out in the morning and to wash windows when necessary."
The erstwhile hero of the Sixth Field Artillery felt his heart thumping madly under his distinguished-conduct medal; but he had declared that he would accept any kind of work, and he was determined not to have his bluff called.
"All right, sir," he said gamely; "I'll start at that if it will lead to something better."
"That rests entirely with you," said Mr. Bangs. "Report for work in the morning."
Quin got out of the office with a hot head, cold hands, and a terrible sinking of the heart. He had forged the first link in his chain—he was an employee of the great Bartlett " Bangs Company; but the gap between himself and Eleanor seemed suddenly to have widened to infinity.
If the window-washing did not become an actuality, it was due to the weather rather than to any clemency on the part of Mr. Bangs. He seemed bent upon testing Quin's mettle, and required tasks of him that only a man used to the discipline of the army would have performed.
Quin, on his part, carried out instructions with a thoroughness and dispatch that upset the entire office force. He had been told to clean things up, and he took an unholy joy in interpreting the order in military terms. Never before had there been such a drastic overhauling of the premises. He did not stop at cleaning up; he insisted upon things being kept clean and orderly. In a short time he had instituted reforms that broke the traditions of half a century.