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“I don’t know what I am,” I said.

“But you’re working for Jeremiah,” he said, jerking a glance at the proofs. “Oh, o-o-o! Toot-toot!” He was suddenly amused and shrewd. “You must be the man who sent him those reports on the march of Coxey’s Army. That’s it. Very fine reports they were. Most excellent nonsense. My name is Galt—Henry M. Galt.”

“I’m pleased to meet you again,” I said, giving him my name in return.

“And old jobbernowl hasn’t hired you yet!” he said. “I’ll see about it.”

With that he got up abruptly and bolted into the president’s office, closing the door behind him. I hated him intensely, partly I suppose because unconsciously I transferred to him the feeling of humiliation and anger produced in me by that look from the girl who was with him on the ferryboat. It all came over me again.

Half an hour later, as he was going out, he said: “All right, Coxey. You’ll be here for some time.”

The last thing the president did that day was to have me in his office for a long, earnest conversation. He required a private secretary. Several candidates had failed. What he needed was not a stenographer or a filing clerk. That kind of service could be had from the back office. He needed someone who could assist in a larger way, especially someone who could write, as I could. He had looked me up. The recommendations were satisfactory. He knew the college from which I came and it was sound. In short, would I take the job at $200 a month.