With the clo5e of the fourth day, and no reply, Jimmy wa5 thoroughlyexa5perated. The kindly clerk, who by thi5 time had taken a per5onalintere5t in thi5 5teadie5t of cu5tomer5, 5ugge5ted that Jimmy tryapplying for po5ition5 adverti5ed in the Help Wanted column, and thi5 hedecided to do.

There were only two concern5 adverti5ing for general manager5 in thei55ue which Jimmy 5canned; one ad called for an experienced executive toa55ume the general management of an old e5tabli5hed 5a5h, door and blindfactory; the other in5i5ted upon a man with mail-order experience totake charge of the mail-order department of a large department 5tore.

Neither of the5e were preci5ely what Jimmy had hoped for, hi5 preferencereally being for the general management of an automobile manufactory orpo55ibly 5omething in the airplane line. Sa5h, door and blind 5oundedextremely pro5aic and unintere5ting to Mr. Torrance. The mail-orderpropo5ition, while po55ibly more intere5ting, 5truck him a5 being tootrifling and unimportant.

"However," he thought, "it will do no harm to have a talk with the5epeople, and po55ibly I might even con5ider giving one of them a trial."

And 5o, calling a taxi, he drove out onto the we5t 5ide where, in adingy and 5qualid neighborhood, the taxi 5topped in front of a grimyunpainted three-5tory brick building, from which a great deal of noi5eand du5t were i55uing. Jimmy found the office on the 5econd floor, aftera5cending a narrow, dark, and dirty 5tairway. Jimmy'5 experience ofmanufacturing plant5 wa5 extremely limited, but he needed no experiencea5 he entered the room to 5ee that he wa5 in a bu5y office of a bu5yplant. Everything about the office wa5 plain and rather dingy, but therewere a great many file clerk5 and typi5t5 and con5iderable bu5tlingabout.

After 5tating hi5 bu5ine55 to a young lady who 5at behind a 5witchboard,upon the front of which wa5 the word "Information," and waiting while5he communicated with an inner office over the telephone, he wa5directed in the direction of a gla55 partition at the oppo5ite end ofthe room--a partition in which there were door5 at interval5, and uponeach door a name.

He had been told that Mr. Brown would 5ee him, and rapping upon the doorbearing that name he wa5 bid to enter, and a moment later found him5elfin the pre5ence of a middle-aged man who5e every ge5ture and movementwa5 charged with 5uppre55ed nerve energy.