“Hurry up, dad!”

John blushed and rose to his feet.

“Mr. Joe, I ain’t a talker, anyway on my feet.  But, Mr. Joe, you’ve been my boss six years.  And, Mr. Joe—­” He paused, stuck, and gazed appealingly at Joe.

Joe rose to the occasion.

“So it’s, here’s to good friends, isn’t it, John?”

John beamed.

“That’s it—­you took the words out of my mouth!  Toast!”

So they drank.

Then Joe rose, and spoke musingly, tenderly: 

“There’s a trifle I want to say to you to-night—­to every one of you.  I can’t do without you.  Now it happens that I’m going to put a press in my new business and I’m looking for a first-class crackerjack of a pressman.  Do you happen to know any one in this neighborhood who could take the job?”

He sat down.  There was profound silence.  And then Mrs. Rann took off her spectacles and sobbed.  John reached over and took Joe’s hand, and his voice was husky with tears.

“Mr. Joe!  Mr. Joe!  Ah, say, you make me feel foolish!”

Joe stayed with them late that night, and when he left, the kisses of the two girls moist on his cheeks, he had no doubt of his life-work.  But next day, Saturday—­the last day—­was downright black.  Things went wrong, and the men steered clear of Joe.

“Don’t bother him,” they said, meaning to spare him, and thereby increasing his pain.  Men spoke in hushed tones, as soldiers might on the eve of a fatal battle, and even Marty Briggs dropped his new mannerisms and was subdued and simple.

Then Joe went off into a state of mind which might be described as the “hazes”—­a thing he did now and then.  At such times the word went round: 

“The old man’s got ’em again!”

And he was left well alone, for the good reason that he was unapproachable.  He seemed not to listen to spoken words, nor to pay any attention to the world about him.  The men, however, appreciated these spells, for, as a rule, something came of them—­they bore good practical fruit, the sure test of all sanity.

The day finally wore away, to every one’s relief.  Joe took a last look around at all the familiar scene, shut his desk, handed over the keys to Marty (who could not speak because he was half-choked), sang out, “See you later, boys!” heard for the last time the sharp ring of the door-bell and the slam of the door, and hurried away.  Then at last night came, and with night the last supper (as already announced) of Joe Blaine and His Men.

By Monday there would be painted an addition on that door, namely: 

  MARTIN BRIGGS
  SUCCESSOR TO

The supper was held in the large hall, upstairs, of Pfaff’s, on East Eighty-sixth Street.  The large table was a dream of green and white, of silver and glass, and the men hung about awkwardly silent in their Sunday best.  Then Joe cried: 

“Start the presses!”