Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; College graduates -- Fiction; Gangsters -- Fiction
"All right," said Mr. Bince, "I suppose we shall see you Thursday, but
just bear in mind, please, that you and I can work better together than
at cross-purposes."
CHAPTER XVII.
JIMMY ON THE JOB.
As Jimmy left the office he discovered that those last words of Bince's
had made a considerable and a rather unfavorable impression on him. He
was sure that there was an underlying meaning, though just what it
portended he was unable to imagine.
From the International Machine Company Jimmy went directly to the
restaurant where he and Little Eva had dined the night before. He found
her waiting for him, as they had agreed she would.
"Well, what luck?" she asked as he took the chair next to her.
"Oh, I landed the job all right," said Jimmy, "but I feel like a crook.
I don't know how in the world I ever came to stand for those letters of
recommendation. They were the things that got me the job all right, but
I honestly feel just as though I had stolen something."
"Don't feel that way," said the girl. "You'll make good, I know, and
then it won't make any difference about the letters."
"And now," said Jimmy, "tell me where you got them. You promised me that
you would tell me afterward."
"Oh," said the girl, "that was easy. A girl who rooms at the same place
I do works in a big printing and engraving plant and I got her to get me
some samples of letterheads early this morning. In fact, I went
down-town with her when she went to work and then I went over to the
Underwood offices and wrote the recommendations out on a machine--I
used to be a stenographer."
"And you forged these names?" asked Jimmy, horrified.
"I didn't forge anybody's name," replied the girl. "I made them up."
"You mean there are no such men?"
"As far as I know there are not," she replied, laughing.
Slowly Jimmy drew the letters from his inside pocket and read them one
by one, spreading them out upon the table before him. Presently he
looked up at the girl.
"Why don't you get a position again as a stenographer?" he asked.
"I have been thinking of it," she said; "do you want me to?"
"Yes," he said, "I want you to very much."
"It will be easy," she said. "There is no reason why I shouldn't except
that there was no one ever cared what I did."
As she finished speaking they were both aware that a man had approached
their table and stopped opposite them. Jimmy and the girl looked up to
see a large man in a dark suit looking down at Eva. Jimmy did not
recognize the man, but he knew at once what he was.
"Well, O'Donnell, what's doing?" asked the girl.
"You know what's doing," said the officer. "How miny toimes do the
capt'in have to be afther isshuin' orrders tellin' you janes to kape out
uv dacent places?"
The girl flushed. "I'm not working here," she said.
"To hell ye ain't," sneered O'Donnell. "Didn't I see ye flag this guy
whin he came in?"
"This young lady is a friend of mine," said Jimmy. "I had an
appointment to meet her here."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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