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“I don’t know,” he answered, “but I think I ought to get a breath of spring.”

When Fowler had gone he put on his hat and raincoat and, to avoid anyone who might be waiting, went through an unused filing room that gave access to the elevator. The filing room was actively inhabited this morning, however; and, rather to his surprise, by a young boy about nine years old, who was laboriously writing his initials in chalk on the steel files.

“Hello!” exclaimed John Jackson.

He was accustomed to speak to children in a tone of interested equality.

“I didn’t know this office was occupied this morning.”

The little boy looked at him steadily.

“My name’s John Jackson Fowler,” he announced.

“What?”

“My name’s John Jackson Fowler.”

“Oh, I see. You’re—you’re Mr. Fowler’s son?”

“Yeah, he’s my father.”

“I see.” John Jackson’s eyes narrowed a little. “Well, I bid you good-morning.”

He passed on out the door, wondering cynically what particular axe Fowler hoped to grind by this unwarranted compliment. John Jackson Fowler! It was one of his few sources of relief that his own son did not bear his name.