When Teddy Burke left the store that night to make his call on Mr. Everett he was in a most jubilant frame of mind. A great honor had come to his friend Sam Hickson. Hardly had Teddy left him to interview Miss Newton when Hickson had been summoned to the system manager’s office. There he received the surprise of his life. He was notified that he had been selected to replace Mr. Jarvis as assistant buyer. Mr. Everett had been consulted by telephone and approved the proposed change. It was expected that Mr. Everett would be able to resume his duties on the following week. Hickson thrilled with joy at this news. It was equivalent to saying that his chief had not resigned after all.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Everett had done so, by formal letter, on the day previous to Mr. Jarvis’ downfall, his resignation to take effect one month after date of notification. Beyond the terse statement, “for personal reasons which I shall not divulge,” the buyer had set forth no direct cause for his act. The system manager was in possession of numerous facts which he shrewdly brought to bear upon the matter. Mr. Everett had not advocated Mr. Jarvis’ appointment as his assistant. Instead, he had wisely recommended Samuel Hickson as best fitted to serve in that capacity. He had been overruled, however, by others, who had believed Mr. Jarvis to be the right man for the position. As the system manager himself had emphatically sided with Mr. Everett, it now gave him exquisite pleasure to be able to say, “I told you so.” A long telephone conversation had ensued between him and Mr. Everett, which resulted in the removal of Mr. Jarvis to the Bureau of Adjustment.

Teddy Burke was ushered into Mr. Everett’s comfortable bachelor quarters that evening, his freckled face alive with friendly joy. He had planned to conduct himself in a manner befitting one who makes a call. The sight of his beloved buyer completely banished his laudable ideas of dignity. He behaved exactly like red-haired, roguish Teddy and no one else. Seated opposite Mr. Everett, who lounged luxuriously in a big easy chair, Teddy forgot himself and proceeded to convulse his chief with a somewhat sheepish account of his numerous experiments in the canning line. He proved himself such good company that Mr. Everett insisted that his young entertainer should dine with him. Accordingly, Mrs. Burke was consulted by telephone and Teddy, in the seventh heaven of bliss, remained to break bread with his chief.

That was a gala evening for him. For days afterward he was prone to dwell fondly upon the glories of that dinner to Harry Harding. On his part, Harry was only too willing to listen to whatever it pleased Teddy to tell and retell. During the long winter so much unpleasantness had befallen the chums that their common misfortunes had strengthened wonderfully the bond between them. With Leon Atkins’ discharge from the store, peace and safety had come to Harry. With Mr. Everett again in Department 40 and Sam Hickson acting as his assistant, Teddy’s cup of happiness overflowed.

“There’s only one thing that makes me feel sorry that the perky Percolator’s gone into the adjusting business,” confided Teddy to Harry as they strolled home under a reddening March sunset. “To-morrow’s April Fool’s Day. I wanted to give him the Zoo’s number and ask him to call up Mr. Lion. I might write it and leave it up at the Bureau to-morrow before he gets there.”

“Don’t you do it,” advised Harry. “Let him alone and stick to kettles and pans. Then you won’t get into trouble. You’ve had enough for one year.”

“I guess that’s right.” Teddy squinted reflectively. “Mr. Everett says if I watch my p’s and q’s I might be his assistant some day. Only I’ll have to grow a lot. I’m an inch taller’n last year, anyhow. That’s growing up some.”

“I’m almost three inches taller than I was last year,” said Harry with pardonable pride. “I hope I’ll grow up to be as tall as Father was. He was six feet.”

“You better get a grow on then,” grinned Teddy. “I saw Miss Verne to-day. She wants me to sing at an entertainment. It’s to be the last of May in Martin Hall. It’s a benefit for another sick man in the store.”

“That reminds me, Mr. Barton’s coming back next week. Miss Welch told me. He wrote her a letter. He said in it he was going to write to me, too. He’s entirely well. Isn’t that fine? He’ll be back at a busy time. Next week’s the big silver sale. I suppose Mr. Prescott’ll be in jewelry. He must hate me. He scowls at me every time I meet him as though he’d like to gobble me up.”

“I guess I’ll have to give him a name,” suggested Teddy. “Let me see. Three Eyes sounds pretty good. He’s s’posed to have one eye in the back of his head. If he’d used it, p’raps that woman wouldn’t’ve got away with the ring.”

Harry laughed a little at Teddy’s inspiration. “You can’t ever make him believe she took it,” he remarked with some bitterness. “I hope nobody tries to steal anything next week while I’m looking at him or her. If I reported it, Mr. Prescott wouldn’t believe me.”

“Oh, I don’t s’pose anyone will,” was Teddy’s cheerful comment. “Silverware’d be pretty hard to steal.”

Harry agreed that it would and dropped the subject. Mr. Prescott’s appearance in the jewelry department on the following Monday afternoon again brought it to mind. The big sale had begun with a rush of customers that made jewelry a hive of industry. The sale was an annual event and many persons took advantage of it with a prudent eye to future wedding or holiday gifts.

Up and down the humming aisles walked Mr. Barton, strangely transformed from the crabbed, hard-faced aisle manager of the past to a pleasant, mild-mannered man whose eyes still held a hint of suffering. He was thinner than of old, but moved with an alertness that bespoke a return of strength and health. Whenever he chanced to encounter Harry he smiled at him in a fashion that bespoke his everlasting gratitude. As for Miss Welch, she and “Smarty Barton” were in a fair way to become excellent comrades of work.

Though jewelry buzzed with importance, books had slid into an unusual state of placidity after an early Easter. Gardening and nature study were now coming rapidly to the front and a great changing of tables went on daily.

As the week progressed, the jewelry department grew busier.

“Beats everything I ever saw the way these people spend their money,” grumbled the cashier in jewelry, whose cage was situated next to the exchange desk. Her remark was addressed to Miss Welch. The latter had just concluded an elaborate argument with an irate woman who insisted that she exchange a damaged cut glass bowl for a perfect one.

“You’re lucky,” was Miss Welch’s grim assurance. “You can take their money and keep your mouth shut. But me! I have to take their sass and talk like an angel. If I told that customer once, I told her ten times to take that bowl to the Bureau of Adjustment. But no, she couldn’t see it. She bought it here and here’s where she’s going to stick till she gets another. ‘Madam,’ I says to her, ‘you can stand here till the store closes if you want to, but I can’t do nothing for you.’ But she wouldn’t believe I was giving it to her straight. So I had to call Barton and he led her away, she telling him about ‘that snippy girl’ as far’s I could hear her. If I don’t come to work to-morrow you’ll know I died of a broken heart over being called a snip. If to-morrow wasn’t Saturday I’d take a rest. This desk is the main pavilion of Trouble-hunters’ Resort.”

“I’m glad to-morrow’s Saturday,” sighed the cashier. “This has been a heavy week. Three or four times a day this cash box runs over. I’ve got about a thousand dollars in it now. I hope Mr. Wiggins sends someone down pretty soon to get it. He generally has a messenger down here after it before this. Must be he’s forgot.”

“It oughtta be a man,” declared Miss Welch reprovingly. “It ain’t safe to trust all that money to a girl.”

“Oh, I don’t know. The elevator’s only a step and these boxes the messengers carry are safe enough. They’re lock boxes. He’s always had special messengers to do it. They’re not cash girls. They’re grown up women and oughtta know their business. All this talk about girls not being able to do as well as men makes me sick.” The cashier pouted, looking rather nettled. “I b’lieve in woman’s rights, I do.”

“Don’t get huffy,” dimpled Miss Welch. “I’m something of a suffragette myself. I was only saying what I thought. This is a free country, ain’t it, Kiddy?” This to Harry Harding, who had stopped before her desk to speak to her. Harry was the bearer of a note from his mother asking Miss Welch to take supper with the Hardings on the next Friday evening. Harry had intended to deliver the note that morning. A call to the stock-room had caused him to forget it until that very moment. He now extended it to her, saying, “Here’s a note from my mother, Miss Welch. What was it you asked me?”

“Forget it. I’m busy.” Miss Welch began a hasty exploration of the square white envelope. “Aren’t you the nice kid?” she beamed as she finished reading the prettily worded missive of invitation. “I’ll be there, both feet first. For goodness’ sake, don’t tell your mother that. She’ll think I was brought up in a barn. I’ll write her an answer to this before I go home. I hope the whole town don’t get the exchange craze while I’m trying to do it. I’m liable to write, ‘Dear Mrs. Harding: No, we don’t exchange men’s shirts at this desk. You better see the aisle man. I accept with pleasure your kind invitation to go two aisles to the right and all the way back, etc.’ That’s about what I’d be writing.” Miss Welch indulged in a merry laugh at her own expense in which both Harry and the cashier joined.

“You’re awful funny,” giggled the cashier. “I—oh, here you are! About time someone got busy with this.” She wagged her head toward the well-filled cash box.

A slender, fair-haired young woman dressed in the customary store black, relieved only by a wide, white collar, stood before the desk, lock box in hand.

“How much have you for me? Tell me quickly. I must get back upstairs.” She spoke imperiously, at the same time producing a small receipt pad and pencil.

“Oh, I guess you can wait a minute. You kept me waiting,” was the cashier’s stolid retort.

Shrugging her shoulders, the young woman stepped into the cage beside the cashier and began to transfer the bulk of the money to the now open lock box, leaving only a small percentage of notes for change. Scribbling a receipt for the amount she had taken, she signed it with an illegible scrawl and prepared to depart in a hurry.

“Wait a moment.” A boyish form resolutely barred the messenger’s path. A determined hand caught her by the arm. With a haughty stare at the offender she jerked herself free.

“Let me go,” she hissed. “What——”

Harry Harding’s fingers clutched the young woman’s arm in a tighter grip. Her appearance at the desk had awakened in his brain a curious recollection of something unusually unpleasant. As he continued to stare at her, that which at first had been merely a disagreeable impression deepened to an alarming knowledge.

“I will not let you go,” he returned, his young face set and stern. “Mr. Barton!” Raising his voice he hailed the aisle manager, whom he sighted a short distance off. Miss Welch and the cashier were staring in dumb surprise. An instant and Mr. Barton was at his elbow.

“What’s the trouble here, Harry?” he asked, amazed at the strange tableau.

“Make this boy let go my arm. He must be crazy. I’m in a hurry. Make him let go, I say.” A pair of pale blue eyes, scintillating with rage, flashed an accompaniment to the furious command.

“She’s not a messenger from Mr. Wiggins’ office,” Harry cried out. “I know she isn’t. Send for Mr. Wiggins and let him identify her. She’s the ring woman, Miss Welch!”

“Great goodness!” exploded Miss Welch. “Hang on to her, Mr. Barton, good and hard. I’ll bet Harry knows what he’s talking about.”

Dropping the cash box the young woman made a furious struggle to break away. Her action was in itself so suspicious as to condemn her. Harry relinquished her to Mr. Barton’s stronger guardianship. By this time a crowd had begun to collect. Miss Welch was already busy telephoning Mr. Wiggins. A man at the far end of the department glimpsed the crowd and now came toward it on the run.

“What’s all this?” he asked gruffly.

“Mr. Prescott,” Harry’s tones held a suspicion of triumph, “this is the woman who got away with the ring last Christmas. I told you I’d know her if ever I saw her again. Ask her about it. Ask her, too, what she was trying to do with that cash box.”

Before Mr. Prescott could answer, a second man pushed his way to the center of the crowd. “Is this the girl?” he questioned, his voice unsteady with fright.

“That’s the one.” It was Miss Welch who answered.

“I never saw her before. Where’s the money?” The query ended almost in a shout.

“It’s here, and you may thank this boy for it.” Mr. Barton nodded over one shoulder, still holding firmly to the now cowering imposter. “This is your case, Prescott. Better take charge of it.”

The detective’s face was a study as he moved forward to collect his own. “You’d better come with me,” he said to Harry. “I may need you.”

Harry was not at all proud of making one of the trio that set out for a neighboring elevator. Yet this time he knew that what he had done was beyond criticism. It remained now for Mr. Prescott to extract the true story of the ring from his prisoner. Once shut off from all means of escape, the woman’s remarkable assumption of bravado in a measure left her. She could not very well deny the raid on the cash box, but pretended ignorance of the affair of the ring. It was a long, wordy battle to which Harry was compelled to listen. In the end the woman broke down and confessed not only the theft of the ring, but that she was also one of a gang of professional thieves. No amount of argument, however, could persuade her to reveal either their identity or their whereabouts.

It was at this juncture that Mr. Prescott allowed Harry to go, with, “I’ll see you later, my boy. I’ve a good deal to say to you.”

Meanwhile, down in the jewelry department a radiant-faced young woman was singing Harry’s praises to Mr. Barton.

“That boy’s shooting upward like a rocket,” she exulted. “What’s more he’s going to stay up. He’s got a wise head on his shoulders. I’m glad he got a chance to show Prescott a thing or two.”

“He’s a smart boy and a good one,” agreed the aisle manager. “He did a great deal for me. You know he spoke to Mr. Keene about me when I was sick. That’s how Mr. Keene came to know of it and started the plan for the benefit.”

“Mr. Keene nothing,” retorted Miss Welch. “He’s the one that cinched the idea for that benefit. Him and that red-headed kid he runs with. They planned it out, but kept it under their hats because they was afraid to let folks know it for fear they’d think the show wasn’t much if two youngsters steered it. He’s a wonder, that boy. I supposed you knew the rights of it, if no one else did. Well, I guess Mr. Keene and me must have been the only ones in the know. It’s only one more star in Harry’s crown.”

“I never knew. I——” Mr. Barton wheeled and walked away, too much overcome for further speech. He wondered if Mr. Edward Martin knew the truth. He determined to find out from Mr. Keene. If the senior partner were not in possession of the facts, then his own duty lay before him. Mr. Martin should learn from his lips the story of one boy’s golden deed.