CHAPTER IV

THE ACHE OF RAPPED KNUCKLES

Landlord Files set forth a boiled dinner that day; he skinched on corned
beef and made up on cabbage; but he economized on fuel, and the cabbage
was underdone.

Mr. Britt, back in his office, allowing his various affairs to be
digested--his dinner, his political project, the valentine--his hopes
in general--found that soggy cabbage to be a particularly tough
proposition. He was not sufficiently imaginative to view his punishment
by the intractable cabbage as a premonitory hint that he was destined to
suffer as much in his pride as he did in his stomach. His pangs took his
mind off the other affairs. He was pallid and his lips were blue when
Emissary Orne came waddling into the office.

Mr. Orne, in addition to other characteristics that suggested a
fowl, had a sagging dewlap, and the February nip had colored it into
resemblance to a rooster's wattles. When he came in Mr. Orne's face was
sagging, in general. It was a countenance that was already ridged into
an expression of sympathy. When he set eyes on Britt the expression of
woe was touched up with alarm. But that the alarm had to do with the
personal affairs of Mr. Orne was shown when he inquired apprehensively
whether Mr. Britt would settle then and there for the day's work.

The candidate looked up at the office timepiece. "It ain't three
o'clock. I don't call it a day."

"You call it a day in banking. I've got the same right to call it a day