The other two, waiting for another car, were left together.  “You don’t think Mr. Carroll means to give up business?” the girl said, in a guarded tone.

“Lord, no!  Why, he has so much business he can hardly stagger under it, and he must be making money.  I was only joking.”

“I suppose he’s good pay,” the girl said, in a shamed tone.

“Good pay?  Of course he is.  He don’t keep right up to the mark—­none of these lordly rich men like him do—­but he’s sure as Vanderbilt.  I should smile if he wasn’t.”

“I thought so,” said the girl.  “I didn’t mean to say I had any doubt.”

“He’s sure, only he’s a big swell.  That’s always the way with these big swells.  If he hadn’t been such a swell, now, he’d have paid us all off before he took his vacation.  But, bless you, money means so little to a chap like him that it don’t enter into his head it can mean any more to anybody else.”

“It must be awful nice to have money enough so you can feel that way,” remarked the girl, with a curious sigh.

“That’s so.”  The young man craned his neck forward to look at an approaching car, then he turned again to the girl.  “Say,” he whispered, pressing close to her in the hurrying throng, and speaking in her ear, “she’s dead stuck on him, ain’t she?” By two jerks, one of his right shoulder, one of his left, with corresponding jerks of his head, up the stairs and up Broadway, he indicated his employer and the girl who had just left on the car.

“She’s a fool,” replied the girl, comprehensively.

“Think she ’ain’t got no show?”

The girl sniffed.

The young man laughed happily.  “Well,” he said, “I rather think he’s married, myself, anyhow.”

“I don’t think he’s married,” returned the girl, quickly.

“I do.  There’s our car.  Come along.”

The girl climbed after the young man on to the crowded platform of the car.  She glanced back at the office window as the car rumbled heavily up Broadway, and it was a pathetic glance from a rather pathetic young face with a steady outlook upon a life of toil and petty needs.

William Allbright had lingered behind the rest, and was in the office talking with Carroll, who was owing him a month’s salary.  Allbright, respectfully and apologetically, but with a considerable degree of firmness, had asked for it.

“It is not quite convenient for me to pay you to-night, Mr. Allbright,” Carroll replied, courteously.  “I was expecting a considerable sum to-day, which would have enabled me to square off a number of other debts beside yours.  You know that matter of Gates & Ormsbee?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Allbright, rather evasively.  He had curious misgivings lately about this very Gates & Ormsbee, who figured in considerable transactions on his books.

“Well,” continued Carroll, rather impatiently, looking at his watch, “you know they failed to meet their note this morning, and that has shortened me with ready money.”