“Why, I—why, just me.” “What’s your name?” “Jimmy—I mean, James Rand.” The girl’s glance roved over his clothes appraisingly. “Where you from?” “Menchon, Pennsylvania,” said Jimmy. His engaging smile and the extraordinary mixture of diffidence and confidence in his manner won out. Besides, he was an extremely good-looking young man. The telephone girl could not understand what he wanted, but she was on his side anyway. “I’ll ask Mr. Cooper to see you. He’s the office manager,” she added confidentially. Jimmy shook his head. “It’s too important for that,” he said positively. “I can’t tell it to anybody but Mr. Wentworth.” The girl considered a moment. Then, with sudden decision, she made a connection and spoke a few rapid words into the telephone. “I’m sorry,” she said as she turned back to Jimmy. “I thought maybe Mr. Wentworth’s secretary would see you.” Jimmy looked blank. It had never occurred to him that any one he selected to tell his big idea to would be reluctant to see him. He had decided on the Wentworth Glass Company quite by accident—the name was engraved on the glassware of the big Broadway restaurant at which he had dined the evening before, and subsequent inquiries had convinced him it was just the sort of organization he wanted—and so he had planned to interview Robert G. Wentworth, its president, that morning. Yet now it seemed impossible for him to see Mr. Wentworth—the telephone girl seemed to think he was crazy to expect such a thing. And even the president’s secretary was too busy to bother with him! For an instant Jimmy felt his task hopeless. “Can’t see you,” the telephone girl repeated. “Wouldn’t Mr. Wentworth see me?” “Certainly not,” said the girl, with some asperity. “You’d better see Mr. Cooper, if you can’t tell it to me. Maybe he would see you.” “No,” said Jimmy. “It’s too important.” “Then maybe if you’d come back tomorrow Mr. Wentworth’s secretary will see you. You might try, anyway—if it’s so important,” she added, at Jimmy’s helpless look of appeal. “I will,” said Jimmy. “Thank you very much.” And with sinking heart he turned from the first business interview he had ever had in his life, and went down into the busy city street below. CHAPTER III. THE INTERVIEW. Jimmy went back despondently to his little boarding-house room. To him the rebuff had been a severe one. He thought about it for an hour; then he had lunch, and went haphazard, with renewed hope, to interview several other big business men whose names he procured. But either his manner had lost some of its confidence, or else the telephone girls he almost invariably encountered were less favorably impressed with him than the girl at the Wentworth Company, for in no other instance did he even receive that much encouragement.