“How long do you expect to keep the office shut, sir?” inquired the clerk, respectfully, but still with a troubled air, and with serious eyes with the unswerving intentness of a child’s upon Carroll’s face.

“About two weeks,” answered Carroll.  “I must have that much rest.  I am overworked.”  It was, indeed, true that Carroll looked fagged and fairly ill.

“And then you expect to resume business?” questioned Allbright, with a mild persistence.  He still kept those keen, childlike eyes of his upon the other man’s face.

“What else would you understand from what I have already said?” said Carroll.  He essayed to meet the other man’s eyes, then he turned and looked out of the window, and at that minute the girl who had worked at the type-writer in the back office looked up at him from the crowded platform of the car with her small, intense face, whose intensity seemed to make it stand out from the others around her as from a blurred background of humanity.  “May I ask you to kindly wait a moment, Mr. Allbright?” Carroll said, and went out hurriedly, leaving Allbright standing staring in amazement.  There had been something in his employer’s manner which he did not understand.  He stood a second, then presently made free to take up a copy of the Wall Street edition of the Sun, and sit down to glance over the panic reports.  It was not very long, however, before he heard Carroll approaching the door.  Carroll entered quite naturally, and the unusual expression which had perplexed the clerk was gone from his face.  His mind seemed to be principally disturbed by the trouble about the elevator.

“It is an outrage,” he said, in his fine voice, which was courteous even while pronouncing anathema.  “The management of this block is not what it should be.”

Allbright had risen, and was standing beside the desk on which lay the Sun.  “It hasn’t been acting right for a week past,” he said, referring to the elevator.

“I know it hasn’t, and there might have been an accident.  It is an outrage.  And they are taking twice as long to repair it as they should.  I doubt if it is in working order by to-morrow.”  As he spoke, Carroll was taking out his pocket-book, which he opened, disclosing neatly folded bank-notes.  “By-the-way, Mr. Allbright,” he said, “I find I can settle my arrears with you to-night, after all.  I happened to think of a party from whom I might procure a certain sum which was due me, and I did so.”

Allbright’s face brightened.  “I am very glad, sir,” he said.  “I was afraid of getting behind with the rent, and my sister has not been very well lately, and there is the doctor’s bill.”

“I am very glad also,” said Carroll.  “I dislike exceedingly to allow these things to remain unpaid.”  As he spoke he was counting out the amount of Allbright’s month’s salary.  He then closed the pocket-book with a deft motion, but not before the clerk had seen that it was nearly empty.  He also saw something else before Carroll brought his light overcoat together over his chest.  “It is really cold to-night,” he said.