"Who sent you?" she continued, and he understood that he was not there in answer to a want advertisement.
"Professor Blackburn." And he presented his letter and went on, with a return of his glibness: "You see, I've been working my way through Harvard—preparing for the ministry—Congregationalist. Found I'd have to stop and go to work regularly for a while before I could finish. So I've come over here, where I can attend the night classes at Columbia at the same time. And as I'm interested in Egyptology, and had heard a good deal about your collection, I got that letter to you. Thought you might know some one in the building who wanted a man, as work in a place like this would be right in my line. Of course, if you're looking for any one, I'd like to apply for the place." And he paused expectantly.
"I see. You want to be a Dissenting minister, and you're working for your education. Very creditable of you, I'm sure. And you're a stranger in New York, you say?"
"Utter," returned Simpkins.
Mrs. Athelstone proceeded to question him at some length about his qualifications. When he had satisfied her that he was competent to attend to the easy, clerical work of the office and to care for the more valuable articles in the hall, things which she did not care to leave to the regular cleaners, she concluded:
"I'm disposed to give you a trial, Mr. Simpkins, but I want you to understand that under no circumstances are you to talk about me or your work outside the office. I've been so hunted and harried by reporters——" And her voice broke. "What I want above all else is a clerk that I can trust."
The assurance which Simpkins gave in reply came harder than all the lies he had told that morning, and, some way, none of them had slipped out so smoothly as usual. He was a fairly truthful and tender-hearted man outside his work, but in it he had accustomed himself to regard men and women in a purely impersonal way, and their troubles and scandals simply as material. To his mind, nothing was worth while unless it had a news value; and nothing was sacred that had. But he was uneasily conscious now that he was doing a deliberately brutal thing, and for the first time he felt that regard for a subject's feelings which is so fatal to success in certain branches of the new journalism. But he repressed the troublesome instinct, and when Mrs. Athelstone dismissed him a few minutes later, it was with the understanding that he should report the next morning, ready for work.
He stopped for a moment in the ante-chamber on the way out; for the bright light blinded him, and there were red dots before his eyes. He felt a little subdued, not at all like the self-confident man who had passed through the oaken door ten minutes before. But nothing could long repress the exuberant Simpkins, and as he started down the stairway to the street he was exclaiming to himself:
"Did you butt in, Simp., old boy, or were you pushed?"
