“I don’t know,” his mother said absent-mindedly, her hands resting on her lap in unwonted idleness.  Then she woke up as from a dream:  “You should ask papa first.”

“What’s the use until I know whether I can get,” Keith parried.

Ten minutes later he bustled into Aunt Gertrude’s store, where she sat in a corner near the big show-window working at a strip of embroidery that never got finished.  She was a spinster with large black hungry eyes in a very white face.  She and Keith’s mother had been girl friends.  Now she was running one of the two jewelry stores owned by her brother.

She had heard of the position.  It was in the office of Herr Brockhaus on the second floor—­a dealer in tailor’s supplies.  And she had heard that he was a very nice man.

“Do you think I can get it,” Keith demanded eagerly.

“Why don’t you run up this minute and ask,” she suggested.

Keith looked as if he had been to jump off a church steeple.  But in another minute he was climbing the stairs.  His legs seemed rather shaky and his tongue felt like a piece of wood.  The moment he opened the door, however, all his fears and hesitations were gone.  Once more he was the old Keith who had made a play of studies and examinations.

Herr Brockhaus was a tall, youngish, good-looking man, a little haughty of mien, but with a tendency to smile in quite friendly fashion.

“I have as good as hired another boy who got here earlier than you,” he said in reply to Keith’s inquiry.  On seeing Keith’s dejected look, he laughed good-humouredly.

“There are plenty of other jobs,” he suggested.

“But you look as if you would be kind to me and give to a chance to learn,” Keith heard himself saying to his own intense astonishment.

“I can see that when you want a thing you want it real hard,” Herr Brockhaus rejoined with another peasant laugh.  “Well, I like that.  What kind of a hand do you write?”

“Awful,” Keith confessed, “but I am going to learn better.”

For a good long while Keith felt himself studied from top to toe, and under that searching scrutiny he blushed as usual.

“I am willing to do anything that is required,” he ventured to ease the suspense.

“All right—­what did you say your name was?  Keith—­I’ll take you, and tell the other boy that I changed my mind.  When can you begin?”

“Tod ... tomorrow,” Keith corrected himself with a sudden remembrance of his father.

“Good,” said Herr Brockhaus.  “Show up at eight.  And I’ll pay you ten crowns a month the first year, although as a rule volunteers don’t get anything.”

Keith walked home on air.  The sun never shone more brightly than that day.  The tall old stone houses along West Long street looked imposing and mysterious, as if they had been magic mansions full of golden opportunities for bright little boys.  School seemed years away already.  Lector Booklund was a dream.