“And I’ll ask two others,” said Estelle.
“It’s ‘La Bohéme’ tomorrow night—it ought to be good.”
CHAPTER VI.
TWO DISCOVERIES.
Mr. Leffingwell Hope, passing down the corridor this same Friday morning, saw Mr. Cooper escorting the president’s daughter to the elevator. It so happened that Jimmy, with a sheaf of papers in his hand, came through a near-by door at the same moment.
The office manager, with a heartiness of manner that surprised Mr. Hope greatly, introduced Jimmy to the girl. The secretary was too far away to hear what was said, but the friendliness of the girl’s greeting was only too apparent. Mr. Hope turned abruptly and reentered the main office.
With this visual evidence of the firm standing in the company that Jimmy Rand had reached, Mr. Leffingwell Hope cursed himself for a fool. He should never have let that boy get a job with them in the first place. It had seemed all right then; he had never supposed that a kid like that from the country would last in business. And his having been around the office would have been a good alibi.
Mr. Hope had always been convinced that something would turn up to eliminate him—he would prove inefficient and be fired or something. But that was just what Jimmy had not done—or been. On the contrary, he had made good. He was still answering correspondence—but it was the more important things that were given him now. And he had a way of poking his head into every department of the organization. Even Mr. Hope had noticed that.
In late September Jimmy had been able to arrange a trip to one of the company’s near-by factories, which was something Mr. Hope did not learn until afterward. And he never knew that the real reason why Jimmy went was so he could investigate the conditions under which glass was made and apply them to some of the theories he and George Cooper had worked out.
The secretary was furious with himself for having allowed things to go along this way. For some six months now he had been waiting for Merkle to get the idea into shape. He had his own plans perfected—had purchased with his own money a very likely coal property near Scranton which he proposed to sell, at an enormous profit, to the Wentworth Company.
Mr. Hope had never told Merkle about that. As a matter of fact the secretary was just getting ready to show Merkle that he didn’t figure in the scheme as largely as he thought he did. But first Mr. Hope wanted to be sure the chemist had finished his investigations.