Speed as he would, however, running the risk as he approached the city streets of being stopped by some watchful authority for exceeding the limits, he could not get back to the broad avenue upon which the stores stood before six o’clock.  There was all the better chance on that account, nevertheless, for examining the windows before which belated shoppers were still stopping to wonder and admire.

Well, looking at them with Benson’s forlorn windows in his mind as a foil, he saw them as he never had before.  What beauty, what originality, what art they showed!  And at a time of year when, the holiday season past, it might seem as if there could be no real summons for anybody to go shopping.  They were fairly dazzling, some of them, although many of them showed only white goods.  His car came to a standstill before one great plate-glass frame behind which was a representation of a sewing-room with several people busily at work.  So perfect were the figures that it hardly seemed as if they could be of wax.  One pretty girl was sewing at a machine; another, on her knees, was fitting a frock to a little girl who laughed over her shoulder at a second child who was looking on.  The mother of the family sewed by a drop-light on a work-table.  The whole scene was really charming, combining precisely the element of domesticity with that of accomplishment which strikes the eye of the average passer as “looking like home,” no matter of what sort the home might be.

“By heavens! if poor Ben had something like that people wouldn’t pass him by for the blanket store,” he said to himself; and drove on, still thinking.

The next day, at an hour before the morning tide of shopping at Kendrick & Company’s had reached the flood, two pretty glove clerks were suddenly tempted into a furtive exchange of conversation at an unoccupied end of their counter.

“Look quick!  See the young man coming this way?  It’s Rich Kendrick.”

“It is?  They told me he never came here.  Say, but he’s the real thing!”

“I should say.  Never saw him so close myself.  Wish he’d stop here.”

“Bet you couldn’t keep your head if he spoke to you!”

“Bet I could!  Don’t you worry; he don’t buy his gloves in his own department store.  He—­”

“Sh!  Granger’s looking!”

There was really nothing about Richard Kendrick to attract attention except his wholesome good looks, for he dressed with exceptional quietness, and his manner matched his clothes.  A floorwalker recognized him and bowed, but the elevator man did not know him, and on his way to the offices he passed only one clerk who could lay claim to a speaking acquaintance with the grandson of the owner.

But at the office of the general manager he was met by an office boy who knew and worshipped him from afar, and in five minutes he was closeted with that official, who gave him his whole attention.

“Mr. Henderson, I wish you could give me”—­was the substance of Richard’s remarks—­“somebody who would go up to Eastman with me and tell me what’s the matter with a dry-goods store there that’s on the verge of failure.”