CHAPTER XIII
William was at the office half an hour earlier than usual the next morning. He entered cautiously by the back stair, and reconnoitred carefully before closing the door. Lucien was the only person in sight. He preserved a profound silence to William's first questionings as to the happenings of the previous afternoon, but when William gave him one minute in which to decide on fighting or telling the story, he told. His narrative was curt and his demeanour cold: it became quite frosty when William laughed delightedly over the recital of the thrashing Lucien had received.
"Where did he hit you, Lucien?" asked William when the story had been told.
"In this room," answered Lucien with dignity, and William roared again.
Lucien waited until the laughter died away and then called attention to the fact that there was a letter on William's desk. "You're right for once, Lucien," said William, who had noticed the letter on first entering the room. He picked it up, aware that Lucien was watching him closely, and feeling certain that the letter did not contain good news for him. Therefore he slipped it into his pocket and walked out of the office to the Bay front, where, with his feet dangling over one of the wharves, he slowly opened the envelope and unfolded the enclosure. The letter was as follows:—
"DEAR WILLIAM,—In view of the events of this afternoon, the full details of which by the time you get this you will doubtless have gleaned from Lucien, it is impossible that you should longer remain in my employ. I am very sorry to lose you, but there is a limit to the length that even an office boy can be allowed to go.
"Yours sincerely,
"CHAS. WHIMPLE."
"Fired!" said William to himself, "fired! Well, I ain't surprised. Tough luck though." He read the letter through again, and continued his soliloquy. "Well, after this, no more dogs for me. Gee—but I hate to leave that place. It beats the band how things will turn out rotten just when the luck seems to be all right."
But William didn't spend much time in regrets. The day was blazing hot, the civic tug for the free baths off the Island sand bar was about to leave the wharf, and he constituted himself a part of the noisy human freight with which it was laden. He had a glorious swim, and at noon time surprised the Turnpike household by arriving for luncheon, having during his business career eaten that meal—packed by his mother's hands—in the office. Quite frankly, and with the mimicry which was the pride of his father and a constant source of astonishment to his mother, he related the whole story. His mother grieved despite her laughter: his father laughed and sorrowed not. "It'll come out right in the end," he said philosophically, "and if it don't, you'll soon get another job."
"Sure," said William; "don't you worry, Ma," he added. After the meal he departed, his head full of a plan that had been nebulous only after his first reading of the letter, but which now seemed to promise much. The more he thought it over, the better he liked it, and despite the heat, he walked quickly to the "Emporium" of one Walter Wadsworth. Walter was the owner, manager, and entire staff of the "Emporium," which consisted of a rickety two-storied structure with a shooting gallery on one side, and a peanut, candy, tobacco, and fruit department on the other side. Walter, whose friendship with William was as old almost as the boy himself, owned the building and the land, as well as a more valuable property near by. But his greater claim to importance, in the opinion of most of the boyhood of Toronto, lay in the fact that for years he had held the refreshment privileges in the baseball park.