It’s a wonder Mortimer didn’t have mental indigestion, with all that load of gilt-edged advice on his mind, and I wa’n’t lookin’ for him to lug it much further’n the door; but, if you’ll believe me, he seems to take it serious.  Every mornin’ after that I finds his hat on the hook when I come in, and whenever I gets a glimpse of him durin’ the day he has his coat off and is makin’ a noise like the busy bee.  At this it takes some time before he makes an impression on Miller; but fin’lly Morty comes out to me with a bulletin that seems to tickle him all over.

“What do you know?” says he.  “When Miller was looking over some of my work to-day he breaks out with, ‘Very good, Upton.  Keep it up.’”

“Well, I expect you told him to chase himself, eh?” says I.

“No,” says Mortimer.  “I sprung that new scheme of mine for filing the back records, and perhaps he’s going to adopt it.”

“Think of that!” says I.  “Say, you keep on, and you’ll be presented with that job for life.  But, honest, you don’t find Miller such a fish, do you?”

“Oh, I guess he’s all right in his way,” says Mortimer.

“Then brace yourself, Morty,” says I, “while I slip you some more golden words.  Tackle that boardin’ house bunch of yours.  Ah, hold your breath while you’re doin’ it, if you want to, and spray yourself afterwards with disinfectant, but see if you can’t learn to mix in.”

“But why?” says he.  “I can’t see the use.”

“Say, for the love of Pete,” says I, “ain’t it hard enough for me to press out all this wise dope without drawin’ diagrams?  I don’t know why, only you should.  Go on now, take it from me.”

Maybe it was followin’ my hunch, or maybe there wa’n’t anything else for him to do, but blamed if this didn’t work too.  Inside of two weeks he gives me the whole tale, one day as we’re sittin’ in the armchairs at the dairy lunch.

“Remember my telling you about the fellow who wore the outing shirt?” says he.  “Well, say, he’s quite a chap, you know.  He’s from some little town out in Wyoming, and he’s on here trying to be a cartoonist—­runs a hoisting engine day times and goes to an art school evenings.  How’s that, eh?”

“Sounds batty,” says I.  “There’s most as many would-be cartoonists as there are nutty ones tryin’ to write plays for Belasco.”

“But this Blake’s going to get there,” says Mortimer.  “I was up in his room Sunday, and he showed me some of his work.  Clever stuff, a lot of it.  He’s landed a couple of things already.  Then there’s old man McQuade, the one with the whiskers.  Say, he’s been all over the world,—­Siberia, Africa, Japan, South America.  Used to be selling agent for a mill supply firm.  He has all his savings invested in an Egyptian cotton plantation that hasn’t begun to pay yet, but he thinks it will soon.  You ought to hear the yarns he can spin, though!”

“So-o-o?” says I.