How manly Bob was, and how businesslike in tone without trying to be so! Happie felt like a little girl who had suddenly discovered that the grown people did not enjoy playing house with her just as she enjoyed having them. But how fortunate she was in her brother who would not let her face anything untried except he first knew what she "would be up against!"
She came out to the savory breakfast which Margery and Gretta had prepared, somewhat subdued, but still ready to do her best to be useful in Mr. Felton's office, if not to be a thoroughly competent substitute for Bob.
For the next two days everything went smoothly and Happie secretly cherished the conviction that she was attaining her ambition and was really useful. The three young men, or "the two young men and that boy," as Happie mentally classified Mr. Felton's clerks, for she cordially disliked pert Dan Lipton, were most polite, ready to serve her, plainly desirous of being friendly, but treating "Scollard's nice little sister," as they called her among themselves, with a respect that convinced Happie of her success in playing her rôle with dignity.
The fourth day of her business career was Friday. It was also to be her last day, for Bob thought he should be able to resume his desk on Saturday, if one of the girls came with him to the door to give him a supporting shoulder in case of need.
Happie announced the joyful tidings on her arrival, and somehow it seemed to change the atmosphere around her. The two elder clerks became assiduous in their desire to serve her, and openly expressed their regret at the prospect of losing what one of them, inclined to sentiment and poetry, styled "the daily inspiration of her sunny face." But Dan Lipton was affected differently. Apparently he felt that there was no time to be lost if he wished to try his hand at teasing the vanishing little substitute, and he revealed, not only that teasing was his preferred amusement, but that his idea of teasing was that of the practical joker.
The livelong morning he made himself a nuisance to Happie, who bore good-naturedly jarrings of her stool which cost her blots; the loss of pen, paper, pencils, blotters; a low whistling close by her side that made addition next to impossible, and the copying of letters very difficult.
At noon there came into the office a man who went up to the eldest clerk's table and asked if he had on his list any desirable apartment for a young man—himself, he added—who had just arrived in New York and hoped to stay for many weeks. "I want good rooms with bath, in a thoroughly well-kept house," he said. "I don't care to turn in anywhere; I want the place recommended. A friend of mine told me I could rely on the house to which I might be sent by Mr. Felton's office."
Happie looked up, her attention attracted by the beautiful voice in which the stranger made known his wants, the pleasant accent, with the r's elided or softened, and the slight drawl, which, without being lazy, was most attractive in its leisurely effect. She saw a man much younger than she had looked for. She had been conscious of his unusual height as he entered, and expected to see him burdened with years proportioned to his inches. Instead she saw a man under thirty, lightly but strongly built, the grace of repose in his motions, which were, at the same time, lithe and alert. His face was handsome, rather from its expression and refinement than from regular beauty. His eyes, hair and mustache were uniformly brown, and the eyes were so filled with spirit and intelligence that they would have redeemed a face lacking the many charms possessed by this one.
"How nice he is!" thought Happie, surveying the newcomer from the vantage ground of his oblivion to her. "He looks as though he had been made just to illustrate the word gentleman. Even his clothes," this sharp-eyed young critic added in her thoughts.
"We don't carry men's apartments on our books," the clerk was saying, in the meantime. "But I can give you the addresses of two or three,—more if you like,—first-class places, where you will find what you want, if you find a vacancy at all."