Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/203

 was unfortunately necessary in order to pay office rent"—he went out a side door warmed by the mild kindliness of Mr. Vandever's manner, touched by the charming tenderness of his old smile, and hopeful with the assurance that his application would be successful without doubt—without reasonable doubt." Mr. Vandever would write to him. When no letter came, and two subsequent calls failed to carry him past the girl who had her desk beside the outer door—but showed him the office still crowded in response to the advertisement which still stood in the morning papers—he refused to credit the suspicion which he could not help but feel. For if an old man, genial, educated, fine-mannered, sweet-faced, and silvery-haired, could be a thief and a hypocrite, then the whole world could be a gigantic swindle, there could be no faith in anyone, and the sunlight on the streets would be a gilding of depravity to make the heart sick. Don could not believe it; or, rather, instinctively, he would not. He preferred to keep his faith in his kind. When his last call found Mr. Vandever's office to let, he went away without asking any questions, for fear that he might hear something shameful.

"Besides," Pittsey went on—dipping the smelts in milk and rolling them in flour—"this is the beginning of the summer, the dull season. Every firm in town is laying off men. You should get your hooks into something now, and be ready to land it in the fall. . . . Here, Donald MacDonald, get to work and make us some toast. Do you know which side of the bread to brown?"