Now the store occupied by Mr. Sandman was on the west side of Broadway and had a half-story opening on a level with the New Church street sidewalk in the rear, where the freight was kept and from which most of the shipping was done.
The clerks all had desks inside a big wire partition down near the door, and old man Sandman’s office was in the rear, while the safe which was being robbed stood between the last desk and the private office, with only the door leading down into the freight department between.
I was immediately put to work on the outward freight book.
It was simple enough. I hadn’t the least trouble in keeping the book, but how to worm myself into the secrets of my fellow clerks--there was the rub.
Jim Gleason, the “inward freight,” on my left; old Mr. Buzby, the head book-keeper, on my right; Hen Spencer, the foreign correspondent, stood nearest the safe all day, and then there was a fellow named Mann, another named Grady, and an office boy; besides these, there were the fellows in the freight department down-stairs.
Which out of all this crowd was the thief?
Never did I so fully realize my want of experience in the business as when I had been in the office of the Eagle Line a few days, without being able to accomplish anything more than to get every one down on me.
“He’s always snoopin’ about and listenin’ to what a feller says,” I overheard Grady say to Mr. Buzby one day.
“That’s so,” replied the book-keeper. “I seen him peekin’ into the safe the other day. I don’t see what old Sandman wants him for anyhow. He’s slower than death about his work and as thick-headed as a mule.”
I was in the closet blacking my boots at the time for it was near the hour to close.
Oh, how mad I was! for I knew they were talking about me.
I made up my mind then and there that old Buzby was the thief. “Anyway,” I reasoned when I left, soon after, “if it ain’t him, who is it? He’s the only one besides Mr. Sandman who has the key.”
Such was my theory at the end of the first week.
I pumped Jim Gleason next to me, the pleasantest fellow in the whole office, a little inclined to be fast, perhaps, if his everlasting chatter about girls, policy and horse races meant anything, but so kind, and seemed to take such a fancy to me, that I couldn’t help liking him better than any one else in the crowd for all that.