The Empty Sack

l see you in his of

d and daintily shod, slipped away between the pens where clerks

the day, arranging his work with the tidy care of one for whom pens, ink, and ledgers were the vital things of life. Finishing his task, his

p! Goin' to get yo

his step. He was obliged to steady his step because some fifteen or twenty pairs of eyes from all the pens in the o

eezy young fellow of twenty startled him by a sudden clap on the shoulder. The boy had not come from

be home for supper. Off no

hind a vision of gleaming tee

kley, the efficiency expert, for whose opinion Mr. Collingham had a kind of reverence, had selected her for the job. Miss Ruddick cultivated her efficiency as another woman cultivates her voice or another her gift for dancing. Throwing off the weaknesses that spring from affection and softness of heart, she had steeled and oiled herself into a swiftly

iciency expert had been closeted with Mr. Collingham, dealing wit

't help reminding you that once you admit any principle but

was much what his physician is to a king. His advice may be distasteful, but it is a command. The most merciful thing now was rapidity of action, as with t

to himself that all the threads of his laborious life, from the time when, as a boy in Canada, he had begun to earn his living at s

ch It was seated, It was only partly visible. All Josiah could see was the shoulder of a portly form, the edge of a pear-shaped pearl in a plum-colored tie, and a temp

merely glanced upward in a casual, sidelong

uppose you know wha

ed the fact th

as you said two

inguished banker, philanthropist, and American citizen, so widely and favorably known for his

that you were not earning your salary. You

ould stay overtime, when none

ood, Follett. It isn't

one banking house and another, in this country and Canada. In

you? I really don't see that

ade only because the necessities of the case req

sir. I only don't see

ady distressed

a charitable institution. It isn't as if you'd been with us twent

tter myself, si

ly and demand business methods are at an end. Don't think th

for you as it is fo

re being dangerous, the b

. Stairs will write you any kind

r, once I'm fired for old age. That's a w

rose to put an end to it. Even so, he had

You've had two years in which"-it was hard to find t

ble to repress a

forty-five a week! And me with five mouths to fe

r found a

-as soon as he was released from the n

en a week with his own expenses to take care of. But I've

e banker's words as he began moving f

as an artist's model. That, too,

Robert told y

n would have stiffened at the use of the name of a member of his family in a conn

y son. I merely understood that your

week for Mr. Hubert Wra

r-I forget who told me-that she's the type thes

if he was walking to his soul's dead-march. Only the force of the conven

of ours, sir; and, besides, there's lots who thi

can earn good

represented by Miss Ruddick's office as into an abyss. For the minute it seemed too awful a void to step into. When his watery blue eyes aga

no help for it. You and I are both caught up into a vast machine. I c

other way that Miss Ruddick was still beside her desk, putting away her papers. Follett didn't look at her, but she loo