"A leak! Gracious king! He's like a torpedo blow-up under the engine-room. The bank'll sink if he stays aboard another month, I do believe. And yet," he added, with a shake of the head, "I don't see but he'll have to stay; there ain't another available candidate for the job in sight. I 'phoned up to Boston and some of our friends are lookin' around up there, but so far they haven't had any success. This war is makin' young men scarce, that is young men that are good for much. Pretty soon it'll get so that a healthy young feller who ain't in uniform will feel about as much out of place as a hog in a synagogue. Yes, sir! Ho, ho!"
He laughed in huge enjoyment of his own joke. Jed stared dreamily at the adjusting screw on the handsaw. His hands clasped his knee, his foot was lifted from the floor and began to swing back and forth.
"Well," queried his friend, "what have you got on your mind? Out with it."
"Eh? . . . On my mind?"
"Yes. When I see you begin to shut yourself together in the middle like a jackknife and start swinging that number eleven of yours I know you're thinkin' hard about somethin' or other. What is it this time?"
"Um . . . well . . . er . . . Sam, if you saw a chance to get a real smart young feller in Lute's place in the bank you'd take him, wouldn't you?"
"Would I? Would a cat eat lobster? Only show him to me, that's all!"
"Um-hm. . . . Now of course you know I wouldn't do anything to hurt Lute. Not for the world I wouldn't. It's only if you ARE goin' to let him go—"
"IF I am. Either he'll have to let go or the bank will, one or t'other. United we sink, divided one of us may float, that's the way I look at it. Lute'll stay till we can locate somebody else to take his job, and no longer."
"Ya-as. . . . Um-hm. . . . Well, I tell you, Sam: Don't you get anybody else till you and I have another talk. It may be possible that I could find you just the sort of young man you're lookin' for."