"Is Baxter here this morning?" Ordway asked presently of a countryman who lounged on a pile of bags near the archway.
"I reckon you'll find him in his office," replied the man, as he spat lazily out into the street; "that thar's his door," he added, pointing to a little room on the right of the entrance—"I seed him go in an' I ain't seed him come out."
Nodding his thanks for the information, Ordway crossed the building and rapped lightly on the door. In response to a loud "come in," he turned the knob and stood next instant face to face with the genial giant of the evening before.
"Good-morning, Mr. Baxter, I've come back again," he said.
"Good-morning!" responded Baxter, "I see you have."
In the full daylight Baxter appeared to have increased in effect if not in quantity, and as Ordway looked at him now, he felt himself to be in the presence less of a male creature than of an embodied benevolent impulse. His very flabbiness of feature added in a measure to the expansive generosity of mouth and chin; and slovenly, unwashed, half-shaven as he was, Baxter's spirit dominated not only his fellow men, but the repelling effect of his own unkempt exterior. To meet his glance was to become suddenly intimate; to hear him speak was to feel that he had shaken you by the hand.
"I hoped you might have come to see things differently this morning," said Ordway.
Baxter looked him over with his soft yet penetrating eyes, his gaze travelling slowly from the coarse boots covered with red clay to the boyish smile on the dark, weather-beaten face.
"You did not tell me what kind of work you were looking for," he observed at last. "Do you want to sweep out the warehouse or to keep the books?"
Ordway laughed. "I prefer to keep the books, but I can sweep out the warehouse," he replied.