While he was waiting for it several of the clerks gathered about him, complimented him on his nerve and presence of mind, and asked him his name.
On his way to the elevator he passed an officer and a man in plain clothes, aiming for Hartz’s office.
“Gee!” he said to himself, “I guess it’s a mighty lucky thing for Bird I was on hand. He evidently meant to put that bullet into his brains.”
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT JACK PICKED UP ON WALL STREET.
“Hello! What kept you so long?” exclaimed Frank Simpson when Jack entered the outer office on his return from his Exchange Place errand.
“There was a little excitement over at Hartz’s office that tangled everybody up. I’ll tell you about it in a moment.” And Jack steered himself into the manager’s office, delivered the envelope, and explained the cause of the delay.
“What! Oliver Bird tried to blow his brains out in Hartz’s office, eh? I heard he was one of the shorts that were badly squeezed yesterday in D. P. & Q. stock,” said Mr. Bishop. “How did the affair end?”
Jack explained as modestly as possible the hand he had had in the matter.
“Upon my word, you saved the man’s life, then. Why, Bird is a big, strong man, and he must have been half crazy at the time. How did you manage to do it?”