Success | Page 9

leaning forward to rest a hand upon Banneker's desk as he spoke. When
the speech was over and the hand withdrawn, something remained
among the strewn papers. Banneker regarded it with interest. It showed
a blotch of yellow upon green and a capital C. Picking it up, he looked
from it to its giver.
"A little tribute," said that gentleman: "a slight recognition of your
services." His manner suggested that hundred-dollar bills were
inconsiderable trifles, hardly requiring the acknowledgment of thanks.

In this case the bill did not secure such acknowledgment.
"You don't owe me anything," stated the agent. "I can't take this!"
"What! Pride? Tut-tut."
"Why not?" asked Banneker.
Finding no immediate and appropriate answer to this simple question,
Mr. Vanney stared.
"The company pays me. There's no reason why you should pay me. If
anything, I ought to pay you for what you did at the wreck. But I'm not
proposing to. Of course I'm putting in my report a statement about your
help."
Mr. Vanney's cheek flushed. Was this composed young hireling
making sport of him?
"Tut-tut!" he said again, this time with obvious intent to chide in his
manner. "If I see fit to signify my appreciation--remember, I am old
enough to be your father."
"Then you ought to have better judgment," returned Banneker with
such candor and good-humor that the visitor was fairly discomfited.
An embarrassing silence--embarrassing, that is, to the older man; the
younger seemed not to feel it--was happily interrupted by the advent of
the lily-clad messenger.
Hastily retrieving his yellow-back, which he subjected to some furtive
and occult manipulations, Mr. Vanney, after a few words, took his
departure.
Banneker invited the newcomer to take the chair thus vacated. As he
did so he brushed something to the floor and picked it up.
"Hello! What's this? Looks like a hundred-bucker. Yours?" He held out
the bill.

Banneker shook his head. "Your uncle left it."
"It isn't a habit of his," replied the other.
"Give it to him for me, will you?"
"Certainly. Any message?"
"No."
The newcomer grinned. "I see," he said. "He'll be bored when he gets
this back. He isn't a bad old bird, but he don't savvy some things. So
you turned him down, did you?"
"Yes."
"Did he offer you a job and a chance to make your way in the world in
one of his banks, beginning at ten-per?"
"No."
"He will to-morrow."
"I doubt it."
The other gave a thought to the bill. "Perhaps you're right. He likes 'em
meek and obedient. He'd make a woolly lamb out of you. Most fellows
would jump at the chance."
"I won't."
"My name's Herbert Cressey." He handed the agent a card.
"Philadelphia is my home, but my New York address is on there, too.
Ever get East?"
"I've been to Chicago."
"Chicago?" The other stared. "What's that got to do with--Oh, I see.
You'll be coming to New York one of these days, though."

"Maybe."
"Sure as a gun. A chap that can handle a situation like you handled the
wreck isn't going to stick in a little sand-heap like this."
"It suits me here."
"No! Does it? I'd think you'd die of it. Well, when you do get East look
me up, will you? I mean it; I'd like to see you."
"All right."
"And if there's anything I can do for you any time, drop me a line."
The sumptuous ripple and gleam of the young man's faultless coat,
registered upon Banneker's subconscious memory as it had fallen at his
feet, recalled itself to him.
"What store do you buy your clothes at?"
"Store?" Cressey did not smile. "I don't buy 'em at a store. I have 'em
made by a tailor. Mertoun, 505 Fifth Avenue."
"Would he make me a suit?"
"Why, yes. I'll give you a card to him and you go in there when you're
in New York and pick out what you want."
"Oh! He wouldn't make them and send them out here to me?
Sears-Roebuck do, if you send your measure. They're in Chicago."
"I never had any duds built in Chicago, so I don't know them. But I
shouldn't think Mertoun would want to fit a man he'd never seen. They
like to do things right, at Mertoun's. Ought to, too; they stick you
enough for it."
"How much?"
"Not much short of a hundred for a sack suit."

Banneker was amazed. The choicest "made-to-measure" in his
Universal Guide, "Snappy, fashionable, and up to the minute," came to
less than half of that.
His admiring eye fell upon his visitor's bow-tie, faultless and
underanged throughout the vicissitudes of that arduous day, and he
yearned to know whether it was "made-up" or self-confected.
Sears-Roebuck were severely impartial as between one practice and the
other, offering a