AN UNEXPECTED FRIEND AT COURT
Mr. Atkins’ telephoned summons soon brought Mr. Rexford to the
stock-room. He listened without comment to Leon’s garbled account
of Harry’s transgressions. He allowed Mr. Atkins to say his say,
uninterrupted. When they had both relieved their injured feelings by
forceful speech he turned sternly to Harry. “And what have you to say
to all this, young man?”
Harry winced at the harshness of the question. “I did not force a fight
on this boy,” he quietly denied. “I warned him to let me alone. He
wouldn’t. I gave him something of what he deserved. I am sorry that
it had to happen here. I am very glad that I whipped him in an unfair
fight. I would not have done him up so thoroughly except for a certain
reason which I won’t tell. He knows that reason, but he is afraid to
tell it. I made him promise to go to Mr. Keene on account of it. I know
now that he never intended to do it. I was going to send for Mr. Keene
to come here, but it wouldn’t be of any use. That is all I have to say.”
Mr. Rexford studied Harry long and earnestly. What had come over the
lovable, courteous Harry Harding of last year? What was all this
mysterious talk about a “certain reason” and “going to Mr. Keene?”
Why had this frank-faced boy become so curiously secretive in the
past few weeks? And that affair of the blue-pencilled picture. Harry
had also refused to reveal whatever he knew of that. With a flash of
that rare breadth of spirit which made him the great man he was, Mr.
Rexford suddenly experienced a feeling of the utmost tolerance toward
Harry. Ranged beside the too-spiteful father and the bullying son,
Harry looked every inch the man. He was secretly glad that the latter
had trounced lazy Leon. No doubt he deserved it. Mr. Rexford had never
liked him. Only out of pity for the father’s hard lot had he allowed
the boy to remain in his department.
“Come with me, Harry,” he commanded not ungently. “I’ll talk with
you later, Atkins. And you,” he frowned upon Leon, “take this to Mr.
Drayton.” As he spoke he had drawn a pad and pencil from a coat pocket.
On it he now scribbled, “Send this boy home for the day. Rexford.”
Leading the way to the stock-room, he entered, Harry following. “Close
the door,” he said. “Now, Harry, what is all this about? Can’t you
trust me?”
A quick rush of tears blinded Harry’s eyes. Somehow the shadow had
lifted. Boy and man had once more set their feet on the old
friendly ground. Harry now saw Mr. Rexford in a new light. Here was,
indeed, a friend, his father confessor, to whom he might pour out his
heart without fear. “I’ll tell you everything,” he said simply. “Just
as I’d tell my father if he were living.”
“My boy, I never imagined that such a state of affairs existed.” The
buyer’s brows were drawn together in a scowl that had deepened as he
listened to Harry’s terse sentences. “When I think of all you’ve had
to endure from that young rascal! It must be stopped. And it was your
friend Teddy who decorated the advertising card. No wonder you didn’t
care to tell me. About the painting, I don’t know what to say. It’s my
duty to straighten out that snarl.”
“Teddy wouldn’t like it,” pleaded Harry. “I’ve spoken of it to you as
I would to my father. Unless Leon owns up of his own accord, Teddy
wouldn’t feel right about it if either you or I took it to the front.
If someone else outside had seen it happen--but no one did.”
“You boys have set for yourselves a strenuous code to live up to,”
mused the buyer. “In itself it is commendable. Yet in this instance I
think you have been over-scrupulous. But I won’t have this Leon in my
department. That’s settled.”
“His father needs his help,” reminded Harry. “He has a very hard time
to get along. His son is better off with him.”
“Yes; I know that is true. Still there is my side to consider. I can’t
harbor useless lumber in my department. I’ll have to think things over.
I’m not sure yet what ought to be done about that painting.”
Harry’s heart sank as the buyer left the stock-room. What did Mr.
Rexford intend to do? He sighed as he laid hands upon his truant
truck and rolled it into place. Now that Mr. Rexford had gone he
hoped Mr. Atkins would not seek him to deliver further condemnation.
Half-heartedly, he took up his work on the bin he had begun to
dismantle when Leon had attacked him. He became suddenly erect as he
heard the sound of an opening door.
“Are you 45?” In the lower doorway of the stock-room stood a store
messenger.
“Yes.” Harry’s heart began to pound violently. “Did you want me?”
“Uh, huh. Mr. Keene sent me up here after you,” grinned the boy.
“Did you go to the department for me?” was Harry’s anxious question.
“Nope. He knew you was up here. He sent another kid over to 84,
though. Something doing, all right.”
“I’ll go with you.” So Mr. Rexford had decided that it was his duty
to break the confidence. Harry sighed. What would Teddy Burke say?
He wondered if his chum would ever forgive him. His dignity forbade
questioning the boy, who seemed bursting with something he longed to
but dared not say.
Mr. Keene’s office held two occupants besides the superintendent. One
was Leon Atkins, livid with fear. He had not found time to seek the
aisle manager with Mr. Rexford’s note before Mr. Keene’s messenger had
swooped down upon him. The other--Harry viewed him in silent amazement.
“Come here, Harding.” Mr. Keene waved Harry into a chair at one side of
his desk. “I understand you and this boy,” he nodded toward Leon, “had
a fight in the stock-room this morning.”
“Yes, sir.” Harry raised steady eyes to the superintendent.
“How did it happen?” Mr. Keene’s tone was kindly rather than harsh.
“I’d rather not say.” A quick flush sprang to the lad’s cheeks.
“Did you begin it?”
The flush mounted higher. “No, sir.”
“Aw, he----” burst forth Leon.
“Be quiet!” thundered Mr. Keene. “I am not yet ready to talk with you.
Now, Harry, I happen to know that you”--he paused significantly--“did
not begin the fight. I know a number of things which I am very glad to
learn. I understand why Theodore Burke left the store under a cloud. I
know, too, who was responsible for the injury to Mr. Edward Martin’s
painting. I am not sure that you and Burke were quite correct in your
behavior, but I am sure that you were inspired by what you believed to
be the best of motives. Ordinarily I would not countenance a fight such
as came off on the tenth floor this morning. Such things have no place
in a store like this. Yet it is a pretty poor sort of boy who won’t
stand up for himself.
“Now, Atkins.” Leon began to quake visibly as Mr. Keene addressed him.
“You are to tell me exactly how you came to do the mischief to Mr.
Martin’s painting.”
“Aw----” Leon’s voice forsook him. He gulped, sighed, then dashed a
hand across his eyes. “I--was--goin’ to drill,” he stammered brokenly.
“I--I saw a pitcher of a--lotta--men fightin’. One--of--’em had a
sword--and was--leadin’ the rest. Then I saw--a--rain stick--standin’
by the railin’. Some’n had forgot it. I was tryin’ to do like
the--fella in the pitcher--and--I--I--smashed into the thing it
stood on. It--it--fell down--an’ I run. Just’s it keeled over--I saw
that--red-headed kid from house furnishings. He’d been lookin’ at me.
He yelled at me--but I beat it.” Leon was now too frightened to tell
anything save the plain truth.
“Is this what Burke told you?” Mr. Keene asked Harry.
“Yes, sir,” came the low reply.
“You tried to make this boy come to me and confess?”
“Yes, sir,” still lower.
“That is all I require of you, Harry. You may go. Oh, yes. I am sure
you will be glad to know that I am going to send word by messenger to
Theodore Burke. Do you think he will come back?”
“I _know_ he will.” Harry’s face broke into sudden radiance. How he
wished he might be with his chum when he received Mr. Keene’s message.
“Would you like to be that messenger?” Mr. Keene smiled at the boy’s
delight.
“Oh, Mr. Keene!” Impulsively Harry’s right hand shot out. He had quite
forgotten that there was a difference in their positions in the store.
The superintendent met it with his own. “We can’t afford to lose such
boys as you and your friend,” he said simply. “I am sure Mr. Edward
Martin will agree with me. Come back in half an hour and I will give
you a note for Theodore.”
Harry had a wild desire to shout at the top of his lungs as he sped
down the stairs to his department. It was all so marvelous; so
unbelievable. And Mr. Rexford had had no hand in bringing Leon to
justice.
It was precisely one hour later when Mrs. Burke called down the stairs
to her son, “Do answer the door-bell, Teddy.”
Teddy, however, was already on the way to answer that jubilant,
insistent ring. “I guess it’s the laundry man,” he muttered. “I’ll
tell him we’re not deaf.” Opening the door to confront the clamorous
purveyor of laundry, Teddy’s black eyes grew saucer-like. “Harry
Harding!” he shouted. “Are you fired, too?”
Harry’s gay laugh held a note of exaltation that Teddy instantly
caught. His freckles stood out darkly under his suddenly paling skin.
“Is it--is it----”
“It is,” caroled Harry. “Read this.” He thrust a square envelope into
his chum’s hand.
Teddy tore it open, his hands shaking. The next instant a resounding
war-whoop rent the quiet hall and floated up the stairs. Mrs. Burke
wondered vaguely if the laundry man had suddenly gone mad. That
unearthly whoop had surely not emanated from her listless, sober little
son. In his exuberant joy, Teddy Burke did something of which he was
ever afterward a trifle ashamed. He flung his two wiry little arms
about Harry and hugged him.
Seated side by side on the living-room davenport, Teddy and Harry spent
a blissful half hour in rejoicing over the wonderful way in which
Teddy’s vindication had come about.
“But see here, Harry, you haven’t said yet who the fellow was that put
me straight with the store. How did anybody know, when you didn’t tell
’em? I know you said you told Mr. Rexford everything, but you will have
it that he wasn’t the one.”
“I’ve been saving it for the last,” smiled Harry. “Oh, Ted, you can
never guess in a thousand years who it was that told. It was,” Harry’s
smile grew broader, “your friend--the Dustless Duster!”
Hearing a second whoop more blood-curdling than the first, Mrs. Burke
descended to find, not a demented laundry man, but a small, red-haired
son whose fantastic capering about the room pointed strongly to the
suspicion that insanity lurked within her own gates.