“Something wrong with him?”
“I’ve had his stuff in the Sunday Sphere looked up.”
“Pretty weird?” put in Mallory, gliding into his beautifully fitting overcoat.
“So damned good that I don’t see how The Sphere ever came to take it. Greenough, you’ll have to find some pretext for firing that young phenomenon as soon as possible.”
Perfectly comprehending his superior’s mode of indirect expression the city editor replied:
“You think so highly of him as that?”
“Not one of our jobs will be safe from him if he once gets his foot planted,” prophesied the other with mock ruefulness. “Do you know,” he added, “I never even asked him for a reference.”
“You don’t need to,” pronounced Mallory, shaking the last wrinkle out of himself and lighting the cigarette of departure. “He’s got it in his face, if I’m any judge.”
Highly elate, Banneker walked on springy pavements all the way to Grove Street. Fifteen a week! He could live on that. His other income and savings could be devoted to carrying out Miss Camilla’s advice. For he need not save any more. He would go ahead, fast, now that he had got his start. How easy it had been.
Entering the Brashear door, he met plain, middle-aged little Miss Westlake. A muffler was pressed to her jaw. He recalled having heard her moving about her room, the cheapest and least desirable in the house, and groaning softly late in the night; also having heard some lodgers say that she was a typist with very little work. Obviously she needed a dentist, and presumably she had not the money to pay his fee. In the exultation of his good luck, Banneker felt a stir of helpfulness toward this helpless person.