THE new clerk's name was Samuel Sickles. Saturday week the five-forty train from the city dropped him off at the Springham station—a neat, well-brushed, alert young man of nineteen who was labeled "strictly business." He came to the store, introduced himself to Mr. Quinby, and set out forthwith to find lodgings. By nine o'clock he had engaged room and board with a family living not far from Washington Avenue, and had left a notice at the station to have his trunk delivered. That much accomplished, he came back to the store and immediately began to look over the shelves and locate the stock.
Mr. Quinby surveyed him with something of curiosity. "Sickles," he said at length, "how did you learn that I was in need of a clerk?"
"I wrote to several wholesale houses and asked if they knew of a small, growing store in a small, growing town that might be able to use my services."
"Humph! I had an idea that you hadn't seen my ad in the Springham paper. Ordinarily the small town boy goes to the city. You left the city
