"Head of the house!" he exclaimed to himself. "Whew! I didn't know he'd come;" Then he said to Jack: "The head partner is at the cashier's desk. Speak to him."
Jack stepped forward, his cheeks burning with the sudden perception that he had been ridiculed. He saw a sharp-eyed lady counting money, just inside the little window, but she moved away, and Jack was confronted by a very stern, white-whiskered gentleman.
"What do you want?" the man asked.
"I'd like to know if you'll hire another boy, and what you're paying?" said Jack, bravely.
"No; I don't want any boy," replied the man in the coop, savagely. "You get right out."
"Tell you what you do want," said Jack, for his temper was rising fast, "you'd better get a politer set of clerks!"
"I will, if there is any more of this nonsense," said the head of the house, sharply. "Now, that's enough. No more impertinence."
Jack was all but choking with mortification, and he wheeled and marched out of the store.
"I wasn't afraid of him," he thought, "and I ought to have spoken to him first thing. I might have known better than to have asked those fellows. I sha'n't be green enough to do that again. I'll ask the head man next time."
That was what he tried to do in six clothing-stores, one after another; but in each case he made a failure. In two of them, they said the managing partner was out; and then, when he tried to find out whether they wanted a boy, the man he asked became angry and showed him the door. In three more, he was at first treated politely, and then informed that they already had hundreds of applications. To enter the sixth store was an effort, but he went in.