“He didn’t exactly say that, Roy. He put it even worse. He said that after I had gotten into high school and finished a course there, and had grown up a bit, then there might be an opening for me in the Secret Service as an”—Willie hung his head—“as an office boy! What do you think of that, Roy? Isn’t it tough to be so small?”
Roy ignored the question. “I’ll say that’s bully!” he cried. “It doesn’t make a particle of difference where you find an entrance, Willie, so you get in. If you still want to be a Secret Service man, take the office boy job. They’ll find out soon enough that you’re more than an office boy. Take any chance you can find to get into the service, even if you have to start by sweeping floors and washing windows.”
“It’s all very well for you to say that, Roy. But you never did it yourself. You never had a bit of trouble to land a job, and you got a full-sized man’s job when you were only through high school. I’ve gone through high school, too, and I can hardly get a boy’s job.”
“You don’t look at it right, Willie. There are thousands of men in the country who can’t get any jobs at all. And they are known to be experienced. Nobody knows what you can do—except the fellows of the Wireless Patrol. We all know you’re a wiz, Willie. You take my advice and grab this office boy job. Then you can show them what you can do. And once they know, you’ll get your chance all right enough. Why, the world is crying out for fellows who can deliver the goods.”
“But I don’t have any assurance that I can get even an office boy’s job, Roy. Sheridan just told me that maybe, if I grew bigger, I might have a chance.”
“Now see here, Willie. You’ll go nutty if you keep harping on that old string. You’ve been out of high school two or three months, and because you haven’t been made president of the United States yet, you go around snuffling like a fellow with hay-fever. Cut it out. You’ll get your chance, and you’ll make good when you do. But don’t get everybody sore on you in the meantime. Now tell me what you are going to do about those wool smugglers to-morrow.”
“Gee! I wish I knew. I don’t know a thing about it except what I have already told you. I don’t know how or where they smuggled in the wool, or how Sheridan intends to nab them. All I know is that he said I could go along.”
“Maybe it will be your chance, Willie.”
“If it is, I’ll be ready for it. Now won’t you show me your wireless?”
They turned to the shining instruments on Roy’s operating table. Eagerly Willie examined each instrument from key to aerial. “They’re fine!” he cried. “Gee! It must be bully to work with such a set.”