For a moment Jim scarcely knew what to answer, and looking up from an overly prolonged inspection of his cigar caught the humorous, quizzical twinkle in the friendly, keen eyes of his host.
"By jingoes!" he exclaimed, "you know something! You've heard the news. You know I've been fired."
"Yes, I do know it," answered Martin, with a grin. "I was—rather curious to learn how you took it. Suppose you tell me all about it. I'm your friend, you know. We've shared salt. I've been entertained in your mother's home. Now cut loose."
Jimmy laughed, sobered, shook his head and said, "You see, that's where the worst of the trouble is unknown. I can't—well, I can't worry Maw. She doesn't know it yet. I've been trying to get another job before I broke the news to her and—well, I haven't succeeded! Those worth while are afraid of me, or else have no opening. For the moment I'm the under dog; but—I'm not whipped!"
And then he told the whole story to Martin, who listened, asked an occasional question, smiled as if at some secret thought, and finally remarked, "Your story agrees with what I've heard. But that man Granger must have been a vindictive brute to carry it so far. By the way, did you say your firm gave you the letter he wrote? Let's see it."
Jimmy took it from his pocketbook and gave it to the wise old man, who stuck glasses on his nose awry, and at an angle well down toward the point, and scanned the missive.
"Humph! Sounds like that sort of man," he commented, as he handed it back. "What do you think of it?"
Jim considered the question for a time.
"At first I was sore because he couldn't take a joke. Then I remembered what kind of a man he appeared to be when I met him, and decided that it was just his way. Not a fault, you know, but something he couldn't help. Men are not all alike. Personally I can't keep a grudge. Life's too short for that. I never try to play, even, in a malicious way. If a man really hurts me, I 'most always think of his side of it, and if I decide I'm in the wrong, go to him and say so. If I think I'm in the right,—just forget him. If he gets the best of me in business, I congratulate him. That's part of the game. This chap Granger really never did me much harm and I think maybe that I, without really intending it, did him quite a lot. So I did the best I could to square it."
"How?" asked Martin with another one of those quizzical glances of his.