and bewildered by the array of little square letter-boxes behind glass
which occupied one whole wall, and an equal number of opaque and locked
wooden ones legibly numbered. His heart leaped; he remembered the
number, and before him was a window with a clerk behind it. Uncle Billy
leaned forward.
"Kin you tell me if the man that box 690 b'longs to is in?"
The clerk stared, made him repeat the question, and then turned away.
But he returned almost instantly, with two or three grinning heads
besides his own, apparently set behind his shoulders. Uncle Billy was
again asked to repeat his question. He did so.
"Why don't you go and see if 690 is in his box?" said the first clerk,
turning with affected asperity to one of the others.
The clerk went away, returned, and said with singular gravity, "He was
there a moment ago, but he's gone out to stretch his legs. It's rather
crampin' at first; and he can't stand it more than ten hours at a time,
you know."
But simplicity has its limits. Uncle Billy had already guessed his
real error in believing his partner was officially connected with the
building; his cheek had flushed and then paled again. The pupils of his
blue eyes had contracted into suggestive black points. "Ef you'll let
me in at that winder, young fellers," he said, with equal gravity,
"I'll show yer how I kin make YOU small enough to go in a box without
crampin'! But I only wanted to know where Jim Foster LIVED."
At which the first clerk became perfunctory again, but civil. "A letter
left in his box would get you that information," he said, "and here's
paper and pencil to write it now."
Uncle Billy took the paper and began to write, "Just got here. Come and
see me at"--He paused. A brilliant idea had struck him; He could impress
both his old partner and the upstarts at the window; he would put in the
name of the latest "swell" hotel in San Francisco, said to be a fairy
dream of opulence. He added "The Oriental," and without folding the
paper shoved it in the window.
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