Will moved slowly across the office till he faced Jasper across the other’s immaculate desk. He rested his finger tips on the polished surface, standing uneasily under the older man’s glare. Abruptly Jasper cried: “Where’s your cravat, Matthews? You’re not half dressed, man. What’s got into you?” Will’s hand flew to his collar. “Why, I--I must have forgotten it,” he lamely apologized. “I’m very sorry, sir.” Jasper snorted; and Will’s hands fidgeted nervously about the tall, old-fashioned ink bottle on the desk before him. The other seemed to hesitate; he cleared his throat importantly. At last he said: “Well, for God’s sake look out for your appearance better than that hereafter. I sent for you to....” Will heard him in something like despair. The slammed door, the lost cravat, these had not been sufficient. He set his teeth hard, and one of his nervous hands touched the high ink bottle. It tilted dangerously. He seemed to try to catch it; but the thing escaped him, was overturned. Across the spotless blotter spread a widening black flood; and as Jasper pushed back his chair with awkward haste, those few drops which the blotter had not absorbed flowed over the edge of the desk and descended upon the rug. The storm broke upon Will’s devoted head; and he stood with burning cheeks under the old man’s profane and scourging tongue, till the first force of Jasper’s anger was spent, and he cried: “Damn it, I ought to kick you out for good and all. But you never did a thing like this before. You--” He fell silent, stumped away across the room as though ill at ease. “I meant to--” he began, then stopped again. Stood a moment by the window, looking out; swung back to where Will stood. “Look up the Fosdick account for me,” he said, with averted eyes. “Give me the figures on it. That’s all. Get out of here.” Will got out. In the corridor he paused for a moment to replace his cravat, swiftly fitting the stiff ends under the wings of his collar. He was back on his high stool before the first of the other bookkeepers arrived. When Homer Dean came in, ten minutes late, Old Jasper’s office boy was in the room, looking for him. “The boss wants to see you, Homer,” he said. Right away.” ... VI “So,” said Homer Dean, the millionaire, to Jenkins, the reporter. “So I got the job, went on the road, my luck began.” Jenkins had listened without interruption; now he nodded slow acquiescence. “And he handed it to you. How did you find it out?” “I’m ashamed of that part,” Homer admitted. “Will and I talked it over at the time, decided Charlie had been mistaken. Old Jasper came in to-day, to talk about old times. I’d never asked him before; to-day I did ask: Why he gave me the job? And he told me what Will did that day.” “Think it was an accident?” Jenkins asked curiously.