She persevered, walking almost on tiptoe so as not to awaken the echoes of the lofty corridor, and quickly came before the door numbered 1244. Stenciled upon it was the firm name: “Ambrose, Necker & Boles, Attorneys.”
There was nothing about Mr. Gordon. His name did not appear, and she was not sure now that she had reached the goal.
She turned the knob with a flutter at her heart, and stepped into the office. She found herself immediately in a sort of fenced-off stall, with a glass partition on one hand, through which she saw many desks and typewriter tables, at which a score of men and girls were busy.
Directly before her, however, was a gate in the railing and beside the gate—and evidently the Cerberus of the way—was a small, thin boy sitting at a small desk, with his legs wound around his chair legs like immature pythons with blue worsted bodies.
He was supposed to be doing something with a pile of papers and long envelopes; but the truth was he had rigged, with rubber bands, a closely-printed, “smootchy” looking paper-backed storybook before him on the desk, so that on the instant Nancy approached, the rubbers snapped the book back under the desk lid out of sight.
He looked up with little, red-lidded eyes, grinning queerly at her.
“Gee!” he gasped under his breath. “I thought it was the boss.” Then aloud he demanded, with hauteur: “Who do you wish to see, lady?”
Now Nancy had not been used to being addressed in so cavalier a manner, and for a moment she did not know how to reply. But in that moment she took a mental picture of the boy that she was not likely to forget.
