"Help wanted."
"Nonsense," she cried, putting down her sewing. "Are you still thinking of leaving school?"
"Here is one about a volunteer wanted in a wholesale office," was his indirect reply. "It is on West Long street--in the same house where Aunt Gertrude has her jewelry store. Do volunteers get paid?"
"I don't know," his mother said absent-mindedly, her hands resting on her lap in unwonted idleness. Then she woke up as from a dream: "You should ask papa first."
"What's the use until I know whether I can get," Keith parried.
Ten minutes later he bustled into Aunt Gertrude's store, where she sat in a corner near the big show-window working at a strip of embroidery that never got finished. She was a spinster with large black hungry eyes in a very white face. She and Keith's mother had been girl friends. Now she was running one of the two jewelry stores owned by her brother.
She had heard of the position. It was in the office of Herr Brockhaus on the second floor--a dealer in tailor's supplies. And she had heard that he was a very nice man.
"Do you think I can get it," Keith demanded eagerly.
"Why don't you run up this minute and ask," she suggested.
Keith looked as if he had been to jump off a church steeple. But in another minute he was climbing the stairs. His legs seemed rather shaky and his tongue felt like a piece of wood. The moment he opened the door, however, all his fears and hesitations were gone. Once more he was the old Keith who had made a play of studies and examinations.