"Why, what's this?" queried Mr. Trapper, in some surprise. "Tea—tea—oh, I see, it's an encyclopaedia. What is the idea, young man?"
"I always like to read up about the stuff we are handling," said Dave. "It's interesting to know all about it; where it comes from, how it is grown, what it is used for; the different qualities, and so forth."
"H'm," said Mr. Trapper, returning the book. "No doubt." And he walked on without further comment. But that afternoon he had something to say to his manager.
"That young fellow on the shipping desk—Elden, I think his name is. How do you find him?"
"Very satisfactory, sir. Punctual, dependable, and accurate."
"Watch him," said Mr. Trapper.
The manager swung around in his chair. "Why, what do you mean? You haven't occasion to suspect—?"
Mr. Trapper's customary sternness slowly relaxed, until there was the suggestion of a smile about the corners of his mouth, and rather more than a suggestion in the twinkle in his eye.
"Do you know what I caught that young fellow doing during noon hour?" he asked. "Reading up the encyclopaedia on tea. Tea, mind you. Said he made a practice of reading up on the stuff we are handling. We, mind you. Found it very interesting to know where it came from, and all about it. I've been in the grocery business for pretty close to forty years, and I've seen many an employee spend his noon hour in the pool rooms, or in some other little back room, or just smoking, but this is the first one I ever caught reading up the business in an encyclopaedia. Never read it that way myself. Well—you watch him. I'd risk a ten-spot that he knows more about tea this minute than half of our travellers."
But Dave was not to continue in the grocery trade, despite his reading of the encyclopaedia, A few evenings later he was engaged in reading in the public library; not an encyclopaedia, but Shakespeare. The encyclopaedia was for such time as he could save from business hours, but for his evening reading Mr. Duncan had directed him into the realm of fiction and poetry, and he was now feeling his way through Hamlet. From the loneliness of his boyhood he had developed the habit of talking aloud to himself, and in abstracted moments he read in an audible whisper which impressed the substance more deeply on his mind, but made him unpopular in the public reading rooms. It was well known among the patrons of the rooms that he read Hamlet. This fact, however, may not have been altogether to Dave's disadvantage. On the evening in question an elderly man engaged him in conversation.