“It’s wonderful. Fixed this up all alone out of odds and ends? I tell you, I’d like to be a partner in a business like this.”
“Want a partner here, Joe?” called out Ralph to his friend in a jocular way.
“I want a helper,” answered the cripple, busy among the shining cooking ware on a kitchen stove at one end of the restaurant.
“Mean that?” asked Zeph.
“I do. I have some new plans I want to carry 53 out, and I need some one to attend to the place half of the time.”
Again Zeph glanced all about the place.
“Say, it fascinates me,” he observed to Ralph. “Upon my word, I believe I’ll come to work here when I get through with this work for you.”
“Tell you what,” said Limpy Joe with a shrewd glance at Zeph, as he placed the smoking dishes before his customers. “I’ll make it worth the while of an honest, active fellow to come in here with me. I have some grand ideas.”
“You had some good ones when you fitted up the place,” declared Zeph.
“You think it over. I like your looks,” continued Joe. “I’m in earnest, and I might make it a partnership after a while.”