As Jimmy left the office he discovered that those last words of Bince's had made a considerable and a rather unfavorable impression on him. He was sure that there was an underlying meaning, though just what it portended he was unable to imagine.
From the International Machine Company Jimmy went directly to the restaurant where he and Little Eva had dined the night before. He found her waiting for him, as they had agreed she would.
"Well, what luck?" she asked as he took the chair next to her.
"Oh, I landed the job all right," said Jimmy. "but I feel like a crook.
I don't know how in the world I ever came to stand for those letters of recommendation. They were the things that got me the job all right, but I honestly feel just as though I had stolen something."
"Don't feel that way," said the girl. "You'll make good, I know, and then it won t make any difference about the letters."
"And now," said Jimmy, "tell me where you got them. You promised me that you would tell me afterward."
"Oh," said the girl, "that was easy. A girl who rooms at the same place I do works in a big printing and engraving plant and I got her to get me some samples of letterheads early this morning. In fact, I went down-town with her when she went to work and then I went over to the Underwood offices and wrote the recommendations out on a machine--I used to be a stenographer."
"And you forged these names?" asked Jimmy, horrified.
"I didn't forge anybody's name," replied the girl. "I made them up."
"You mean there are no such men?"
"As far as I know there are not," she replied, laughing.
Slowly Jimmy drew the letters from his inside pocket and read them one by one, spreading them out upon the table before him. Presently he looked up at the girl.
"Why don't you get a position again as a stenographer?" he asked.
"I have been thinking of it," she said; "do you want me to?"
"Yes," he said, "I want you to very much."
"It will be easy," she said. "There is no reason why I shouldn't except that there was no one ever cared what I did."
As she finished speaking they were both aware that a man had approached their table and stopped opposite them. Jimmy and the girl looked up to see a large man in a dark suit looking down at Eva. Jimmy did not recognize the man, but he knew at once what he was.
"Well, O'Donnell, what's doing?" asked the girl.
"You know what's doing," said the officer. "How miny toimes do the capt'in have to be afther isshuin' orrders tellin' you janes to kape out uv dacent places?"
The girl flushed. "I'm not working here," she said.
"To hell ye ain't," sneered O'Donnell. "Didn't I see ye flag this guy whin he came in?"
"This young lady is a friend of mine," said Jimmy. "I had an appointment to meet her here."
O'Donnell shifted his gaze from the girl to her escort and for the first time appraised Jimmy thoroughly. "Oh, it's you, is it?" he asked.
"It is," said Jimmy; "you guessed it the first time, but far be it from me to know what you have guessed, as I never saw you before, my friend."
"Well, I've seen you before," said O'Donnell, "and ye put one over on me that time all roight, I can see now. I don't know what your game was, but you and the Lizard played it pretty slick when you could pull the wool over Patrick O'Donnell's eyes the way ye done."
"Oh," said Jimmy, "I've got you now. You're the bull who interfered with my friend and me on Randolph and La Salle way back last July."
"I am," said O'Donnell, "and I thought ye was a foine young gentleman, and you are a foine one," he said with intense sarca**.
"Go away and leave us alone," said the girl. "We're not doing anything.
We ate in here last night together. This man is perfectly respectable.