“I have the necessary ability,” replied Jimmy, “to manage your business.”

“How many years have you had in the sash, door and blind business?” snapped Mr. Brown.

“I have never had any experience in the sash, door and blind business,” replied Jimmy.  “I didn’t come here to make sash, doors and blinds.  I came here to manage your business.”

Mr. Brown half rose from his chair.  His eyes opened a little wider than normal.  “What the—­” he started; and then, “Well, of all the—­” Once again he found it impossible to go on.  “You came here to manage a sash, door and blind factory, and don’t know anything about the business!  Well, of all—­”

“I assumed,” said Jimmy, “that what you wanted in a general manager was executive ability, and that’s what I have.”

“What you have,” replied Mr. Brown, “is a hell of a crust.  Now, run along, young fellow.  I am a very busy man—­and don’t forget to close the door after you as you go out.”

Jimmy did not forget to close the door.  As he walked the length of the interminable room between rows of desks, before which were seated young men and young women, all of whom Jimmy thought were staring at him, he could feel the deep crimson burning upward from his collar to the roots of his hair.

Never before in his life had Jimmy’s self-esteem received such a tremendous jolt.  He was still blushing when he reached his cab, and as he drove back toward the Loop he could feel successive hot waves suffuse his countenance at each recollection of the humiliating scene through which he had just passed.

It was not until the next day that Jimmy had sufficiently reestablished his self-confidence to permit him to seek out the party who wished a mail-order manager, and while in this instance he met with very pleasant and gentlemanly treatment, his application was no less definitely turned down.

For a month Jimmy trailed one job after another.  At the end of the first week he decided that the street-cars and sole leather were less expensive than taxicabs, as his funds were running perilously low; and he also lowered his aspirations successively from general managerships through departmental heads, assistants thereto, office managers, assistant office managers, and various other vocations, all with the same result; discovering meanwhile that experience, while possibly not essential as some of the ads stated, was usually the rock upon which his hopes were dashed.

He also learned something else which surprised him greatly:  that rather than being an aid to his securing employment, his college education was a drawback, several men telling him bluntly that they had no vacancies for rah-rah boys.

At the end of the second week Jimmy had moved from his hotel to a still less expensive one, and a week later to a cheap boarding-house on the north side.  At first he had written his father and his mother regularly, but now he found it difficult to write them at all.  Toward the middle of the fourth week Jimmy had reached a point where he applied for a position as office-boy.