" He spoke
still more cheerfully, and Jack looked at him inquiringly.
"Are you open to an offer?"
"I'm open to almost anything," Jack answered, with a puzzled look.
"Well," and Mr. Fletcher settled back in his chair, "I can give you the
situation in five minutes. I've been in this business over thirty years
--yes; over thirty-five years. It has grown, little by little, until
it's a pretty big business. I've a partner, a first-rate man--he is in
Europe now--who attends to most of the buying. And the business keeps
spreading out, and needs more care. I'm not as young as I was I shall be
sixty-four in October--and I can't work right along as I used to. I find
that I come later and go away earlier. It isn't the 'work exactly, but
the oversight, the details; and the fact is that I want somebody near me
whom I can trust, whether I'm here or whether I'm away. I've got good,
honest, faithful clerks--if there was one I did not trust, I wouldn't
have him about. But do you know, Jack," it was the first time in the
interview that he had used this name--"there is something in blood."
"Yes," Jack assented.
"Well, I want a confidential clerk. That's it."
"Me?" he asked. He was thinking rapidly while Mr.
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