"You're welcome to find out for yourself," he pants, dashin' up another flight. "Thanks for the invite," says I. "Guess I will." And, say, talk about your mass plays around a shirtwaist bargain counter! Why, the corridor was full of 'em, all tryin' to rush the door of 1,323 at once. For a guess I should say that half the manicure artists, lady demonstrators, and cloak models between 14th and 34th was on the spot. Oh, they was a swell bunch, with more fur turbans and Marie Antoinette ringlets on view than you could see collected anywhere outside of Murray's! They was sayin' things, too! I couldn't catch anything but odd words here and there; but the gen'ral drift of their remarks seems to be that someone has welshed on 'em. First off I thought it must be one of these skirt bucket-shops that has been closed out by the renting agent; but then I gets a look at the sign on the door and sees that it's the Peruvian Investment Company, which sounds like one of them common twenty per cent. a month games. And it's a case of lockout, with the lady customers ragin' on the outside, and nobody knows what's takin' place behind the ground glass. That wa'n't excitin' enough to lure me from a steady job for long, though, unless some one was goin' to do more'n look desp'rate and talk spiteful. "Ah, why not smash something?" I sings out. "Didn't any lady think to bring a brick in her vanity bag?" A couple turns around and glares at me; but it encourages one to begin hammerin' on the glass with her near-gold purse, and just as I'm about to leave this turns the trick. The door swings open all of a sudden, and there stands a tall, well-built gent, with a green felt hat pushed back on his head, a five-inch cigar juttin' out of one corner of his mouth, and his thumbs stuck in the pockets of a sporty striped vest. On account of the curly brown Vandyke, he's kind of a foreign-lookin' party; but someway them smilin', wide-open eyes of his has a sort of familiar look. For a high pressure storm center he seems mighty placid. As he throws open the door he steps back into the middle of the room, rests one elbow against the rail of a wired-in cashier's coop, and removes the cheroot so he can spring a comfortin' smile on the crowd. It's a brainy play. The rush line stops like it has gone up against a bridge pier, and then spreads out in a half-circle. "Well, ladies," says he, "what can we do for you to-day?" Do I know who it is then? Well, do I! Maybe it has been months since I've heard the voice, and maybe he does wear a set of face herbage that I'd never seen before; but I ain't one to forget the only real A-1 classy boss I ever had; not that soon, anyway. It's Mr. Belmont Pepper, as sure as I've got a Titian thatch on my skull!