Tembarom's heart jumped into his throat again, and he swallowed it once more. He was glad he was not holding his hat in his hand because he knew he would have forgotten himself and thrown it up into the air.
“Thank you, Mr. Galton,” he said, flushing tremendously. “I'd like to tell you how I appreciate your trusting me, but I don't know how. Thank you, sir.”
When he appeared in Mrs. Bowse's dining-room that evening there was a glow of elation about him and a swing in his entry which attracted all eyes at once. For some unknown reason everybody looked at him, and, meeting his eyes, detected the presence of some new exultation.
“Landed anything, T. T.?” Jim Bowles cried out. “You look it.”
“Sure I look it,” Tembarom answered, taking his napkin out of its ring with an unconscious flourish. “I've landed the up-town society page—landed it, by gee!”
A good-humored chorus of ejaculatory congratulation broke forth all round the table.
“Good business!” “Three cheers for T. T.!” “Glad of it!” “Here's luck!” said one after another.
They were all pleased, and it was generally felt that Galton had shown sense and done the right thing again. Even Mr. Hutchinson rolled about in his chair and grunted his approval.
After dinner Tembarom, Jim Bowles, and Julius Steinberger went upstairs stairs together and filled the hall bedroom with clouds of tobacco-smoke, tilting their chairs against the wall, smoking their pipes furiously, flushed and talkative, working themselves up with the exhilarated plannings of youth. Jim Bowles and Julius had been down on their luck for several weeks, and that “good old T. T.” should come in with this fairy-story was an actual stimulus. If you have never in your life been able to earn more than will pay for your food and lodging, twenty dollars looms up large. It might be the beginning of anything.
“First thing is to get on to the way to do it,” argued Tembarom. “I don't know the first thing. I've got to think it out. I couldn't ask Biker. He wouldn't tell me, anyhow.”