Affairs at the Emporium were getting strained, too. Daniel Dwight was as shrewd a man as the next one. He saw plainly that his junior clerk was getting ready—like the many who had gone before him—for a flitting.
He knew the signs of discontent, although Hiram prided himself on doing his work just as well as ever.
Then, there was a squabble with Dan, Junior. The imp was always underfoot on Saturdays. He was supposed to help—to run errands, and take out in a basket certain orders to nearby customers who might be in a hurry.
But usually when you wanted the boy he was in the alley pitching buttons with loafing urchins of his own kind—“alley rats” his father angrily called them—or leading a predatory gang of the same unsavory companions in raids on other stores in the neighborhood.
And Dan, Junior “had it in” for Hiram. He had not forgiven the bigger boy for pitching him into the puddle.
“An' them was my best clo'es, and now maw says I've got to wear 'em just the same on Sunday, and they're shrunk and stained,” snarled the younger Dan, hovering about Hiram as the latter re-dressed the fruit stand during a moment's let-up in the Saturday morning rush. “Gimme an orange.”
“What! At five cents apiece?” exclaimed Hiram. “Guess not. Go look in the basket under the bench; maybe there's a specked one there.”
“Nope. Dad took 'em all home last night and maw cut out the specks and sliced 'em for supper. Gimme a good orange.”
“Ask your father,” said Hiram.
“Naw, I won't!” declared young Dwight, knowing very well what his father's answer would be.