"I should say. Never saw him so close myself. Wish he'd stop here." "Bet you couldn't keep your head if he spoke to you!" "Bet I could! Don't you worry; he don't buy his gloves in his own department store. He--" "Sh! Granger's looking!" There was really nothing about Richard Kendrick to attract attention except his wholesome good looks, for he dressed with exceptional quietness, and his manner matched his clothes. A floorwalker recognized him and bowed, but the elevator man did not know him, and on his way to the offices he passed only one clerk who could lay claim to a speaking acquaintance with the grandson of the owner. But at the office of the general manager he was met by an office boy who knew and worshipped him from afar, and in five minutes he was closeted with that official, who gave him his whole attention. "Mr. Henderson, I wish you could give me"--was the substance of Richard's remarks--"somebody who would go up to Eastman with me and tell me what's the matter with a dry-goods store there that's on the verge of failure." The general manager was, to put it mildly, astonished. He was a mighty man of valour himself, so mighty that his yearly salary would have been to the average American citizen a small fortune. The office was one to fill which similar houses had often scoured the country without avail. Other business owners had been forced to remain at the helm long after health and happiness demanded retirement. Among these, Henderson was held to be so competent a man that Matthew Kendrick was considered incredibly lucky to keep his hold upon him. To Matthew Kendrick's grandson Henderson put a number of pertinent inquiries concerning the store in question which Richard found he could not intelligently answer. He flushed a little under the fire. "I suppose you think I might have investigated a bit for myself," said he. "But that's just what I don't want to do. I want to send a man up there whom the owner doesn't know; then we can get at things without giving ourselves away." The general manager inferred from this that philanthropy, not business interest, was at the bottom of young Kendrick's quest and his surprise vanished. The young man was known as kind-hearted and generous; he was undoubtedly merely carrying out a careless impulse, though he certainly seemed much in earnest in the doing of it. "You might take Carson, assistant buyer for the dress-goods department, with you," suggested Henderson after a little consideration. "He could probably give you a day just now. Alger, his head, is back from London this week. Carson's a bright man--in line for promotion. He'll put his finger on the trouble without hesitation--if it lies in the lack of business experience, buying and selling, as you say. I'll send for him."