you ever applied for a job before?”
“No. I’ve always helped Gram run the farm
until now,” Joanne explained. “I felt I was more
needed there than anywhere else. We keep a farm
hand, but a great deal of the work still falls
upon me.”
The girls soon reached Riverside Heights, and
Nancy had no trouble finding the address men-
tioned in the advertisement. It was in a run-down
section of the city, but Nancy did not mention
this to her companion.
“Here we are,” Nancy said cheerfully, stop-
ping the car in front of a dingy-looking office
building.
Joanne made no move to get out of the car, but
sat nervously pressing her hands together.
“I’m a terrible coward,” she confessed. “I don’t
know what in the world to say when I go in. I wish
you’d come with me.”
“I’ll be glad to,” said Nancy, as she turned off
the ignition and locked the car. They entered
the building. There was no elevator, so the girls
climbed the dimly lighted stairway to the third
floor. Soon they came to Room 305, which had
been mentioned in the advertisement.
“There’s no name on the door,” Nancy ob-
served, “but this must be the right place.”
As they stepped into the reception room,
Nancy noted that it was dirty and drab. The two
girls glanced at each other, exchanging expres-
sions of disappointment.
At that moment a man came from the inner of-
fice and surveyed the girls sharply. He was tall
and wiry, with hostile, penetrating eyes and harsh
features. His suit was bold in pattern and color,
and his necktie was gaudy.
“Well?” he demanded coldly.
Joanne found sufficient courage to take the ad-
vertisement from her pocket.
“I-I saw this in the paper,” she stammered.
“I came to apply for the position.”
The man stared at Joanne critically, then at
Nancy.
“You lookin’ for the job too?” he asked.
Nancy shook her head. “No. I’m here with my
friend.”
The man looked at Joanne again and said with
a shrug of his shoulders, “Go on in the other
room. I’ll talk to you in a minute.”
Joanne cast Nancy a doubtful glance and
obediently stepped into the inner office.
“Look here,” the man addressed Nancy,
“wouldn’t you like that job? I could use a good-
lookin’ girl like you.”
“I’m not looking for work, thank you,” Nancy
returned aloofly.
The man was about to make a retort when the
telephone rang. He scowled and went over to the
table to answer it. As he lifted the receiver he
looked nervously back toward Nancy.
“Hello,” he growled into the phone. “This is
Al. Shoot!”
Nancy listened to his end of the unbusiness-
like conversation and watched him reach for pa-
per and pencil and begin to scribble down a line
of figures. This in itself would not have seemed
so peculiar, except that he continued to eye
Nancy suspiciously.
He kept on copying figures. All the while
Nancy watched him curiously.
“O.K., Hank,” he muttered just before he
hung up. “You say you’ve found a girl? . . .
Fine! We can’t be too careful in this business!”
All this time Nancy was wondering what kind
of transactions went on in this office. There had
been no indication on the door of what business
the man was engaged in and nothing in the room
gave her any clue. She realized now that Joanne’s
chances of getting the position were slim, and
Nancy was actually relieved. She was very sus-
picious of the whole setup.
“I was just taking down some stock-market quo-
tations,” the man remarked lightly as he crossed
the room toward Nancy.
“This isn’t an investment house, is it?” she
asked.
“No, you wouldn’t call it that exactly,” he an-
swered with a smirk. “We run a manufacturing
business.”
“I see,” Nancy murmured, though she really
did not understand at all. “What do you manu-
facture?”
The man pretended not to hear and moved on
to the inner office where Joanne was waiting. In
haste to escape further questions, he forgot to
pick up the sheet of paper with the numbers on
it.
Nancy was curious about the telephone conver-