"My boy, if your work was as honest as your tongue, your fortune would be made. I am afraid I must remember what passed at our last meeting. You promised me then--" "I am quite aware of it, sir. The real truth is that I can't get up. The work here is distasteful to me--but I do my best." The manager shook his head in a deprecating manner. "We have given you many chances, Kennedy," he rejoined. "If it rested with me, I would give you another. But it doesn't rest with me--it rests with that necessary person. Example. What would the men say if I treated you as a privileged person? You know that the work could not go on. For the present, at any rate, you are suspended. I must see my directors and take instructions from them. Now, really, Kennedy, don't you think that you have been very foolish?" "I suppose so, sir. That's what foolish people generally think. It must make a lot of difference to you whether a man comes at six or seven, even if he does a good deal more work than the early ones. I could do what you ask me to do in three hours a day. That's what puzzles me." The amiable Mr. Tucker was up in arms in a moment. "Now, come, I cannot discuss abstract propositions with you. Our hours are from six to six. You do not choose to keep them and, therefore, you must go. When you are a little more practically inclined, I will speak to the directors for you. You may come and tell me so when that is the case." "I shall never come and tell you so, sir. I wish that I could--but it will never be the truth. The work that I could do for you is now what you want me to do. I am sure it is better for me to go, sir." "Then you have something in your mind, Kennedy?" "So many things, sir, that I could fill a book with them. That is why I am foolish. Good-by, Mr. Tucker. I suppose you have all been very kind to me--I don't rightly understand, but I think that you have. So good-by and thank you." The discreet manager took the outstretched hand and shook it quite limply. There had been a momentary contraction of the brows while he asked himself if astute rivals might not have been tampering with this young fellow and trying to buy the firm's secrets. An instant's reflection, however, reassured him. Alban had no secrets worth the name to sell, and did he possess them, money would not buy them. "Half mad but entirely honest," was Mr. Tucker's comment, "he will either make a fortune or throw himself over London Bridge."