CHAPTER III.
THE INTERVIEW.
Jimmy went back despondently to his little boarding-house room. To him the rebuff had been a severe one. He thought about it for an hour; then he had lunch, and went haphazard, with renewed hope, to interview several other big business men whose names he procured.
But either his manner had lost some of its confidence, or else the telephone girls he almost invariably encountered were less favorably impressed with him than the girl at the Wentworth Company, for in no other instance did he even receive that much encouragement.
No one of importance in the whole great city of New York, it seemed to Jimmy then, cared to see him or to hear about his big idea. He thought about it that whole Tuesday evening, sitting alone in his little bedroom, with his fists clenched and his face flushed and serious.
Two conclusions he reached: one was that he would not tell his business to any telephone girl or clerk; and the other was that he would see somebody big, if he had to keep on trying till doomsday.
The next morning he was back at the Wentworth Company offices, smiling cheerfully at the girl he had seen the day before. And every day that week he was there, still asking for “Mr. Wentworth’s secretary, please.”
Finally one morning, still protesting that his business was important, and that he could not tell it either to her or to the suggested Mr. Cooper, Jimmy heard the first encouraging words of his whole week of waiting.
“Mr. Wentworth’s secretary will see you in a few minutes,” the telephone girl announced.
“What’s her name?”
“His name is Mr. Leffingwell Hope.”