“Yes, sir,” returned Tom. His own smile was fainter. “I’ll be back then. Much obliged. An’—and I hope the other—I hope your partner will let me come.”
“We’ll see.” Mr. Cummings waved his hand. “I’ll let you know when you come back.” He watched the boy speculatively as the latter strode unhurriedly down the aisle and out of the door. Then, “Miss Miller,” he called, “look up Israel Bowles’s account and give me the figures.”
At the back of the store, behind the window of the cashier’s partitioned-in desk, a face came momentarily into sight and a brown head nodded.
Out on the sidewalk Tom Pollock paused and thrust his hands into his pockets. It was the noon hour and Main Street was quite a busy scene. Almost directly across the wide thoroughfare the white enamelled signs of a lunch room gleamed appealingly. Tom looked speculatively at the next store on his route, which was a tiny shoe shop with one diminutive window filled with cheap footwear. It didn’t promise much, he thought. Then a hand went into a pocket and he pulled out a crumpled dollar bill and some silver. He frowned as he hastily calculated the sum of it, selected two ten-cent pieces, and returned the rest to the pocket. With the two coins in the palm of his hand he crossed the street to the lunch room and found a seat. The back of the room held counters with stools in front of them that folded out of the way when not in use, but near the entrance two lines of chairs stood against the walls. The right arm of each chair was widened into a sort of shelf large enough to hold a plate and a cup and saucer. Above the rows of chairs the neat white walls were inscribed with lists of viands and their prices. Tom sank into his chair with a sigh, stretched out his tired feet, and studied the menu across the room. There was no hurry, for he had three-quarters of an hour before he would return to Cummings and Wright’s to learn the verdict. The chair Tom had taken had been the only empty one at the moment, for the lunch room was popular and well patronised and the time was the busiest period of the day. At his right a rather small, neatly dressed gentleman with black whiskers and a nervous manner was simultaneously draining the last drop in his milk glass and glancing at a gold watch which he had pulled from his pocket in a fidgety way. Tom had decided to have a plate of beef stew, price ten cents, a piece of apple pie, price five cents, and a glass of milk, price the same, when the nervous gentleman arose hurriedly and in passing tripped against one of Tom’s extended feet.
“Excuse me,” said Tom. The man gave him an irritated glance, muttered something ungracious, and made for the door. Tom’s gaze turned idly toward the chair beside him which the man had just vacated and fell on a small leather coin-purse. Evidently the gentleman had failed to return it to his trousers pocket or it had fallen out afterward. Tom seized it and jumped up. Fortunately he found when he reached the door that the loser, in spite of his apparent hurry, had paused on the curb. Tom touched him on the arm.
“I guess this is yours, ain’t it?” he asked. “It was in your chair.”
“Eh? Yes, of course it is. Must have dropped out of my pocket.” He seemed quite put out about it and scowled at the purse before he put it away. “Most annoying.” He shot a fleeting glance at the boy. “Much obliged to you; very kind.” Then he plunged off the sidewalk, dodged a dray, and narrowly escaped the fender of a trolley car. Tom smiled as he returned to the lunch room.
“Bet you,” he reflected, “he’s one of the sort that’s always in a hurry and never gets anywhere!”
His absence, as short as it had been, had lost him his seat, and he was obliged to penetrate to the rear of the room and perch himself on a stool in front of one of the long counters. There, however, he feasted royally on beef stew, bread and butter, pie and milk, and managed to consume a full half-hour doing it. To be sure, he was still hungry when he had finished the last crumb, for he had had nothing since breakfast at seven o’clock and it was now well after one, and he had been on the go all the morning. But he felt a heap better and a lot more hopeful, and as he left the lunch room he was ready to believe his search for employment ended, that Mr. Cummings’s reply would be favourable. A contented stomach is a great incentive to cheerful thoughts.