Luckily for Joe, he had much work to do.  He and Marty Briggs had to settle up the business, close with customers, dig from the burned rubbish proofs and contracts, attend the jury, and help provide for his men.  One sunny morning he and Marty were working industriously in the loft, when Marty, with a cry of exultation, lifted up a little slot box.

“Holy Moses, Joe!” he exclaimed, “if here ain’t the old kick-box!”

They looked in it together, very tenderly, for it was the very symbol of Joe’s ten years of business.  On its side there was still pasted a slip of paper, covered with typewriting: 

  Kick-box

  This business is human—­not perfect.  It needs good
  thinking, new ideas (no matter how unusual), and
  honest criticism.

There are many things you think wrong about the printery and the printery’s head—­things you would not talk of face to face, as business time is precious and spoken words are sometimes hard to bear.

  Now this is what I want:  Sit down and write what
  you think in plain English.  It will do me good.

  Joe Blaine.

Suddenly Marty looked at his boss.

“Say, Joe.”

“What is it, Marty?” The big fellow hesitated.

“Say—­when that jury finishes—­you’re going to set things up again, and go on.  Ain’t you?”

Joe smiled sadly.

“I don’t know, Marty.”

Tears came to Marty’s eyes.

“Say—­what will the fellers say?  Ah, now, you’ll go ahead, Joe.”

“Just give me a week or two, Marty—­then I’ll tell you.”

But the big fellow’s simple grief worked on him and made him waver, and there were other meetings with old employees that sharply drew him back to the printery.  One evening, after a big day of activity, he found it too late to reach the boarding-house for supper and he remembered that John Rann’s baby was sick.  So he turned and hurried across the golden glamor of Third Avenue, on Eightieth Street, and just beyond climbed up three flights of stairs in a stuffy tenement and knocked on the rear door.  Smells of supper—­smells chiefly of cabbage, cauliflower, fried onions, and fried sausages—­pervaded the hall like an invisible personality, but Joe was smell-proof.

A husky voice bade him come in and he pushed open the door into a neat kitchen.  At a table in the center under a nicely globed light sat John Rann in his woolen undershirt.  John was smoking a pipe and reading the evening paper, and opposite John two young girls, one about ten, the other seven, were studying their lessons.

“Hello, John!” said Joe.

John nodded amiably, and muttered: 

“Hello yourself!”

He was a strong, athletic, stocky fellow, with sunken little blue eyes, heavy jaws, and almost bald head.  Before he had time to rise the two young girls leaped up with shrieks of joy and rushed to Joe.  Joe at once tucked one under each arm and hugged them forward to a big chair, into which they all sank together.