Page:Bob Chester's Grit.djvu/102

88 his card for a pass, Bob did not know, but after scrutinizing the faces of the various men in the office, he selected one who seemed kind and pleasant, and was making his way toward him, when he was confronted by a boy several inches smaller than he was, clad in a green uniform trimmed with gold braid, who demanded insolently:

"Here, you! Where do you think you are going? Who do you want to see?"

"I don't know exactly."

During this interchange of words, the office-boy had been scanning Bob and his threadbare clothes contemptuously. And at the lad's reply, he laughed outright, adding:

"Well, if you don't know who you want to see, you can't come in here."

"But I want to get a pass for Fairfax, Oklahoma," protested Bob.

"You get a pass! Say, are you crazy? Only the general managers and the other high officers travel on passes."

"But Mr. Perkins told me to come here," asserted Bob.

To what lengths this determination of the office-boy to get rid of Bob would have gone there is no knowing, for the official whose desk was nearest the railing in front of which Bob stood