according to the number of regular boys you can get. I’d like three at least. Can you look them up this afternoon?”
“Yes, sir.”
And bursting with pride at this amazing trust in him, and with eyes that would have lit up a dark night, he strode out of the dining-room and dashed off to tell his mother that he had the grandest boy’s job in the town.
Bob smiled after him. He had been told by the committee the night before that Jimmy was the boy he should get, but even without that recommendation he would have known Jimmy was the boy. And Bob was satisfied with the three that Jimmy brought with him the next morning, and saw that it was a regular boy gang with its acknowledged code and leadership and loyalty.
When Valerie arrived Jimmy was managing his runners, and trying not to be lordly about it, for his mother had impressed on him that pride goeth before a fall. He counted out their papers, checked up their sales and returns, put the pennies into a cash-box of his own and entered each boy’s record in a three-penny note-book that was the treasure of his life. He would have died to save it from injury, and he never had a more wonderful moment than when after Bob had audited and balanced it for the first time, he had turned with the words, “First rate, Jimmy. Not a mistake. Go on as you have done this week and I’ll raise your salary at the end of the month.”
And listening to him that night his tired mother dreamt wonderful dreams for him, mingled with hopes of rest some day for herself.
But Jimmy did much more than manage the runners. He swept out the office and the composing-room, he sharpened the pencils, filled the inkwells, washed the paste
