The letters that were not dictated into the telephone were written in John’s round, conscientious-looking hand. If there were anything that one human being could do for another that was not done in the office, Simeon did not know what it was--nor did John. A clothes-brush that brushed them twice a day hung by Simeon’s hat and coat; and if Simeon’s neckties were still shabby and his collars a little frayed, it was because John had not yet discovered the remedy. Some days a luncheon appeared on Simeon’s desk, and some days he went out to luncheon; and he could not have told which, except that it was always the thing that he would have done had he devoted hours of thought to it all. He did not give thanks to John, and John did not expect them. The lamps in his eyes had not been lighted for that--nor for money.... He went about the room now in his slow, considerate way, attending to each detail of locking up, as carefully as if he were not to be first on the ground in the morning.... He would return to start the day. Later--perhaps at noon--he would slip away. That would make least trouble.... To come in the morning and find him gone!--John felt, through all his short, square figure, the shock to the nervous, quivering one. He did not need to reason it out. He did not even know that he thought it. It was an instinct--born the first day he came into Simeon Tetlow’s office and saw the thin figure seated before its chaotic desk wrestling its way through mighty things.... He had thought of his mother as he stood there waiting for orders. She had fairly driven him away. “Go and be a _man!_” she had said; “I shall ruin you.” And she had smiled at him courageously.... And he had come away, and had taken the first thing at hand--a call-boy, kicking his heels against a bench with a dozen others. And this was his employer.... So he had stood waiting when Simeon Tetlow had looked up and seen the lamps aglow. That was three years ago. And tonight Simeon, plodding home through the foggy gloom, was swearing a little under his breath. “It ’s the weak spot in the boy,” he said testily; “I believe he’s soft at the core.” He inserted his latchkey, grumbling still. “Wash dishes--will he? Damn him!--Umph!--Damn him!” And yet it was as if he had said: “Bless him!” The great door swung noiselessly open, and he went in. II