sounded around the office. Every clerk turned abruptly and applied himself energetically to his task. Then Speedy perceived the reason for it. Mr. Talbott, the boss, was standing in the doorway of his private office surveying the scene sternly from behind forbidding gold-rimmed glasses. Speedy surreptitiously and quickly transferred his newspaper to his coat pocket and wrote figures rapidly and almost at random.
But there was no forestalling Nemesis. Mr. Talbott was headed his way. A sheaf of papers was in his hand.
Speedy was a little afraid of Mr. Talbott, as much as Speedy's training as a typical New York boy of the streets allowed him to be afraid of anybody. Mr. Talbott had been rather regretful about hiring him. He had asked Speedy's name and Speedy had answered before he thought: "Speedy—I mean, Harold—Swift." And Mr. Talbott, learning from Speedy's lips how many jobs he had held in the past few years, had said rather sarcastically, "Are you called 'Speedy' because you hold the world's long distance record for being hired and fired?" "No," Speedy had answered promptly, "I inherited it from my father. He's called Speedy too—Speedy Swift—and he was shortstop on the Yankees twenty years ago."
Now Mr. Talbott was standing by Speedy's high stool. He was a small, almost bald, middle-aged man, his face white with an office pallor and his skin tight and almost as transparent as parchment. Pinch-nosed glasses rode a thin, sharp proboscis,
