“See the boss.”
“Mr. Manning?”
“If that’s his name.”
“He’ll kick us out. That’s the kind he is. Talks loud and bosses things, and hain’t got a mite of patience with anybody.”
“We kin outrun him,” says Catty, and he grinned kind of mischievous. “Any man kin kick me that kin catch me. Come on if you hain’t scairt.”
“Guess I dast go where you dast,” says I, and I mogged right along with him.
The office was in a little square building off to the side, and while we were going up to it I was looking around me careful to see what would be the best way to run when Mr. Manning started after us. I’d picked out just how I was going to dodge in among the lumber-piles by the time we got to the door. We went right in.
First there was a kind of an outside office where there was a bookkeeper and a typewriter working, and back of that was Mr. Manning’s office with the door shut.
Catty walked right up to the railing and says to the bookkeeper, who was Johnnie Hooper, and not very old and a lot dressy, with his hair plastered onto his head, “Is Mr. Manning in?”
“Who wants to know?” says Johnnie, with the kind of a grin that makes you mad.