“Oh, you are, eh?” returned Brandon. “Well, I want to see Mr. Pepper.”
“You do, eh?” The clerk eyed him with still greater disfavor. “You do, eh? Well you can’t see Mr. Pepper.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one reason he isn’t here—he ain’t down yet—he’s gone away—he’s dead!”
He slammed down his pen and jumped off the high stool.
“Git out o’ here you little rapscallion!” he roared, evidently expecting Brandon to be frightened by his vehemence. “We don’t allow no loafing ’round this office. Git, I say, or——”
At that instant the street door behind the amused Brandon was opened, and with one glance at the newcomer the clerk’s jaws shut together like a trap, he turned about and bounded to his seat on the stool with great ability, and seizing his pen went to work on his books with monstrous energy.
Brandon turned about also, surprised at these proceedings, and found a short, pudgy looking little man standing in the doorway of the office, gazing at the clerk with a broad smile on his red face; but upon looking closer the boy discovered that, although the mouth was smiling, the gentleman’s eyes were very stern indeed behind the gold rimmed eye glasses.
“What is the meaning of this unseemly conduct, Weeks?” he asked in a tone of displeasure.
“I—I was just showin’ this—this young friend of mine how—how a feller up to the Bow’ry acted t’other night,” murmured the clerk, a sort of ghastly red color mounting into his withered face beneath the parchment-like skin.