"Oh, go to thunder, you pin-head!" says Hartley, startin' back for the bond room to collect his eye-shade, cuff protectors and other tools of his trade.
"You—you're discharged, young man!" Piddie gurgles out throaty.
"Very well," Hartley throws over his shoulder. "Have it that way if you like."
Which is where I gets Piddie's goat still further on the rampage by lettin' out a chuckle.
"The young whipper-snapper!" growls Piddie.
"Oh, all of that!" says I. "What you going to do besides fire him? Couldn't have him indicted under the Lever act, could you?"
Piddie just glares and stalks off. Having been called a pin-head by a bond room cub he's in no mood to be kidded. So I follows in for a few words with Hartley. You see, I could appreciate the situation even better than Piddie, for I knew more of the facts in the case than he did. For instance, I had happened to be in Old Hickory's private office when old man Tyler, who's one of our directors, you know, had wished his only son onto our bond room staff.
He's kind of a rough old boy, Z. K. Tyler, one of the bottom-rungers who likes to tell how he made his start as fry cook on an owl lunch wagon. Course, now he has his Broad Street offices and is one of the big noises on the Curb market. Operatin' in motor stocks is his specialty, and when you hear of two or three concerns being merged and the minority holders howlin' about being gypped, or any little deal like that, you can make a safe bet that somewhere in the background is old Z. K. jugglin' the wires and rakin' in the loose shekels. How he gets away with that stuff without makin' the rock pile is by me, but he seems to do it reg'lar.
And wouldn't you guess he'd be just the one to have finicky ideas as to how his son and heir should conduct himself. Sure thing! I heard him sketchin' some of 'em out to Old Hickory.
"The trouble with most young fellows," says he, "is that they're brought up too soft. Kick 'em out and let 'em rustle for themselves. That's what I had to do. Made a man of me. Now take Hartley. He's twenty-five and has had it easy all his life—city and country home, college, cars to drive, servants to wait on him, and all that. What's it done for him? Why, he has no more idea of how to make a dollar for himself than a chicken has of stirring up an omelette.