CHAPTER VII
WILLIE GETS HIS CHANCE
Without further incident, the two made their way to Headquarters. Sheridan reported to his chief the discovery of the wool together with the arrest of the wool smuggler. He also described in some detail the manner in which the cotton thief had been found and arrested.
“Of course we are not directly interested in mere theft,” said the Chief, “but that was a good piece of work and I am glad you got the man. He would have stolen wool just as readily as he took cotton, if he had happened to be transporting wool. And sooner or later he would have had a load of it to carry. So you probably saved yourself trouble later on.”
“No doubt of it. We owe that to our young friend here. It seems that he is quite desirous of getting into the Secret Service.”
The Chief swung around in his chair and faced Willie. “I’m afraid you’re aiming a bit high,” he said, with a smile. “You know we never take anybody into the Service except the ablest and most experienced operators. And we have to be very certain of a man’s integrity before we even consider him.”
“I understand all that,” said Willie, “and I have no idea of trying to become a Secret Service agent offhand. But even the best men you have, had to make a start somewhere. I am willing to start at the very bottom, to do anything that would connect me with the Service, so that I could learn about your methods and study your problems. Mr. Sheridan thinks that maybe there might be a chance to work as an office boy. If I could get such a position you’d never be sorry you hired me. I would do the work just as near right as I knew how.”
“I believe you would be glad to have a lad like him in the Service, Chief,” remarked Sheridan. “He has had quite a bit of experience, and he seems to grasp a situation quickly. Now, when I was trailing those fellows before we arrested Larsen, there were several men in the bunch I wanted to keep under observation. I feared the gang would split up and I would lose some of them, so I wanted to telephone for McCarthy or somebody else to help me. But I didn’t want to risk losing the trail while telephoning. This kid was coming along the street. I never saw him before, but you can see by his face that he is intelligent. So I got him to telephone for me.”
The Chief nodded comprehension.
“Do you know what the lad did? When I gave him our telephone number he recognized it as the private call of the Secret Service, and——”
“What!” exclaimed the Chief, turning sharply on Willie. His eyes seemed to bore right through Willie. “How did you know that number was the Secret Service call?”
“Because your predecessor in office here gave us the number, when we came here during the war to help the Secret Service run down that secret wireless of the Germans. I belong to the Camp Brady Wireless Patrol, sir.”
“You don’t say!” cried the Chief. “Of course I wasn’t in this district then, as you know, but I remember hearing about that matter. You boys were of very material assistance to the Secret Service then.”
“We were mighty glad we could help,” said Willie.
“You see, Chief,” said Sheridan, “I had reason for saying you would be glad to have the boy in the outfit. But I didn’t finish my story. I want you to know the rest of it. When this lad telephoned in and found it would not be possible for the office to send help, he decided he’d supply the help himself. I had on some old togs like a longshoreman, and the kid right away grasped the idea that his dolled up appearance would attract attention in a South Street booze joint. So he grabbed the first newsy he met, bought his old coat and cap, and dusted up his own good pants, so that he looked the part of a gutter-snipe all right. Then he trailed me to that hotbed of crookedness, Bill Dirkin’s oyster-house, and quietly slipped the message to me. And while we were in another of those joints last night, he used his ears to such good advantage that we landed that fellow Jensen, with his stolen cotton. That’s one we put over on the cops, and this lad is responsible for it.”
“I wish I could help you, my lad,” said the Chief kindly. “I wish I had a place for you in this office. But there isn’t a thing I can give you and I don’t see a chance of any opening.”
“Not even as an office boy?” cried Willie. His face became very sober and he looked so doleful that both his companions laughed.
“Don’t take it so hard,” said the Chief. “Boys who are really ambitious and really capable are so scarce that there’s always a chance for one somewhere. Now, I’m going to send you down to the office of Mr. William King, the Special Agent of the Treasury. He’s always having trouble with inefficient office boys. He told me so the other day. He may have a place for you.”
“But I don’t want to work for the Treasury Department,” protested Willie. “I want to become a Secret Service man.”
“The work is pretty much the same thing,” explained the Chief. “The Special Agent of the Treasury is particularly charged to look after the collection of import duties in the port of New York. He has to see that all just duties are collected. In short, his particular business is to prevent smuggling and all frauds against the customs revenue. And he has a force of special agents who are Secret Service men, under another name, to see that smuggling is prevented. This wool smuggling case really belongs to them, but their men have become so well known about the water-front that we handled it for them. We are all secret agents of the government and we work together if it is necessary, though the Secret Service proper now confines its attention mostly to preventing counterfeiting and frauds against national papers like Liberty bonds. We also guard the President and national guests.”
“Oh! I see,” replied Willie. “And do you think there might be a chance for me there?”
“Maybe not right away,” was the reply, “but I’m sure there would be before very long.”
“I’m a thousand times obliged to you,” said Willie. “Shall I go right down and see the Special Agent?”
“Mr. Sheridan will go with you. Good-bye and good luck to you.” He shook hands heartily with Willie, then turned to his desk. With high hopes, Willie followed Sheridan down the corridor to the elevator.
Arriving presently at the Custom-house, the two mounted the broad flight of steps, with beautiful groups of heroic statuary on either hand. They passed through the great door, and entered the building. Engrossed though Willie was in the matter of getting a job, he paused involuntarily to gaze at the beautiful structure in which he now found himself. So well proportioned was the building that Willie had twice looked at it that very morning without ever a thought of its size. In fact, it had seemed to him to be small. But now, as he looked down the long, roomy corridors and noted the lofty ceiling and the general air of spaciousness, he suddenly remembered that the building occupied the entire block on which it was located, and that it was seven stories high.
Any one might be deceived by the exterior of the building, but nobody could be by the interior. It was rich and beautiful, and Willie felt very certain that it must be one of the finest custom-houses in the world—as it is. The beautiful marble corridors, the exquisite metal work, of bronze and other materials, the wonderful woodwork, all impressed Willie by their beauty and finish. It made him proud to think that this magnificent structure belonged to his government. Some day, he hoped, this would be his headquarters, the place where he worked. His heart beat faster at the thought.
He stepped into the elevator with his companion and was shot up to the fourth floor. Down a long corridor they went, and through a door at the end of it. The door opened into an anteroom. A sort of settee for callers occupied the space along one wall, and opposite this was a low railing, barring visitors from further progress. Inside of this railing were a chair and a desk, obviously the place for an office boy. But no office boy was visible. Willie wondered if he would ever sit in that chair. For a moment or two they hesitated in the anteroom. Then Sheridan pushed through the gate and stuck his head through an inner door, that opened into a large, spacious, well-furnished office.
“Hello, Frank. Come in,” Willie heard a hearty voice calling from within the inner room.
Sheridan turned and beckoned to Willie, who scurried through the gate and followed hard on the Secret Service man’s heels.
“How are you, Mr. King?” Willie heard his companion say. “I didn’t like to butt in here this way, but I couldn’t find anybody to take a word to you.”
“Drat that office boy!” Mr. King said vehemently. “He’s never on the job when he’s needed. I’d like to see an office boy once who would attend to his job.”
“Then take a good look at my young friend here, Mr. King. His name is Willie Brown. Willie, this is Mr. King. I knew you wanted a good office boy, and I brought him around. He’s all ready to go to work.”
Mr. King looked puzzled. “What’s the joke, Frank?” he asked, after he had spoken to Willie.
“There’s no joke at all,” said Sheridan. “This lad wants a job the worst way. But he’s awful particular. There’s only one job he’ll take. He wants to be an office boy for the Special Agent of the Treasury, and he came all the way from central Pennsylvania to get the job.”
The Special Agent of the Treasury looked more puzzled than ever. “I am no mind reader, Frank,” he said. “Explain.”
The Secret Service man laughed. “It’s this way, Mr. King. This boy is dead set upon becoming a Secret Service man, and——”
“Been reading dime novels, like the rest of them, I’ll bet,” said Mr. King. “I don’t want him.”
“Of course you don’t,” went on the Secret Service man, “but you will when you find out a little more about him. In the first place, he doesn’t read dime novels. In the second, he belonged to that bunch of wireless boys that helped to catch the German spy, Sanders, and his crew during the war. Third, he has set his heart upon becoming a Secret Service man. You know as well as I do that we couldn’t take him into the Service. But the Chief is interested in the lad, and he knows that you are in need of a good office boy. So he sent me down here to see what you could do for the lad.”
“Passed the buck to me, did he?” said Mr. King, but he smiled when he said it.
“B-rrrrrrrrrrr,” went the desk telephone.
The Special Agent leaned forward and swung the instrument around toward himself. “Hello,” he called.
“Yes. This is King.... Yes. They are all ready. I’ll send them this minute. Goodbye.”
He pressed a button on his desk. “B-zzzzzzzzz! B-zzzzzzzz! B-zzzzzzzz!” went the buzzer at the office boy’s desk. There was no response. “B-zzzzzzzz!” went the buzzer again, long and angrily.
“Drat that boy!” said the Special Agent. “I need him the worst way and I’d bet a dollar he’s out playing craps. I’ve got to get some papers up to the Deputy Attorney General at once.”
Willie leaped to his feet. “May I take them?” he said.
“Do you know where the Attorney General’s office is?”
“No, sir. But I can find it if you give me the address.”
“Do you think I dare trust him with these papers, Frank? They are important.”
“They’ll be perfectly safe,” said the Secret Service man.
“Then you take this package, Willie, and deliver it at the Attorney General’s office. Then come back here, and I’ll make it right with you.” The Special Agent wrote down an address on a slip of paper and handed it to Willie.
Willie took it, thrust the package of papers into the inside pocket of his coat, buttoned the coat up tight, and bolted out of the office.
When Willie was gone, the Special Agent turned to the Secret Service man. “Tell me all you know about the lad, Frank,” he said. “Your Chief telephoned me you were coming and put in a good word for the kid. Is he really any good?”
“My own opinion is that he’s a very unusual boy, though I wouldn’t dare say that where he could hear me. I’ve known him only a couple of days, but I happen to know a great deal about that business with Sanders. Those Germans had us worried sick, Mr. King, absolutely sick. The increase in crimes against the government, after we declared war upon Germany, was so tremendous that our force of operatives was ridiculously inadequate. We couldn’t begin to cope with the situation. Those spies were sending out news of every movement made by our naval vessels and transports, and we simply didn’t have the men to run them down. Then these boys came from Pennsylvania, to help us. I no longer remember how they were brought here: but they established a wireless watch, caught and deciphered the spy messages, and finally located the German wireless outfit itself. And we got the spies, too. Between you and me, those boys did some mighty fine detective work. Of course, they had an older man working with them, but the boys themselves displayed an unusual amount of initiative and judgment.”
“I’m mighty glad to hear all this. You see what sort of an office boy I have. If you are sure Willie Brown would be an improvement, I’ll transfer my present boy to another post and try Willie.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I know about him myself,” and the Secret Service man related the incidents of the past two days.
“If he proves to be half as good as he sounds,” commented Mr. King, “I’ll be indebted to you to my dying day. Hello, here he is back again. He didn’t waste any time.”
Willie came into the office and handed Mr. King a piece of paper. “What is this?” asked the Treasury Agent.
“A receipt for the papers,” replied Willie.
“I didn’t ask you to get me a receipt,” said Mr. King.
“I know you didn’t,” replied Willie. “I got that receipt for myself. It’s proof that I did my job right.”
“Do you always do things as clever as that?”
“That wasn’t clever, Mr. King. That was common sense. Sometimes I make mistakes, Mr. King. But I always do the best I know how.”
“You admit that you make mistakes? And then you come asking for a job?” And the Special Agent looked very stern.
“I guess a fellow who didn’t make mistakes sometimes wouldn’t make much of anything else,” said Willie.
“Well, you didn’t make the mistake of lying to me,” said Mr. King. “If there’s anything I hate, it’s a boy who lies.” And now his face was full of smiles.
“If you’ll give me a job,” said Willie, “I’ll engage to tell you the truth—always.”
“Mr. Sheridan has been telling me a little about your work. Now I want to know a little more about yourself. Do you smoke cigarettes?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you play craps?”
“Never played in my life.”
“Do you read dime novels? Mr. Sheridan says you don’t, but perhaps he doesn’t know.”
“I don’t,” said Willie, “but I read lots of other things. I wouldn’t want to agree not to read. I can’t go to school any longer, and if I am to go on learning, I must continue to read.”
“That’s all right so long as it doesn’t interfere with your work. Now if I give you a job, will you be on hand during office hours, attend promptly to the work you are given to do, and answer that buzzer promptly when it rings?”
“Absolutely,” answered Willie.
“Then I guess you’re hired. Report here to-morrow at eight o’clock.”
“Do you really mean it?” cried Willie, so delighted that he could hardly keep from throwing his hat in the air.
“Surest thing you know. Now, be sure you’re on time—to-morrow and every other day. Good-bye. I’ll see you in the morning. I’m obliged to you, Frank,” and the Special Agent nodded good-bye to his visitors.
All the way out of the building Willie walked on air. This beautiful structure was going to be his headquarters after all. Here he was going to build his fortune. At last he had his chance. To be sure, his chance was only that of an office boy, but Willie no longer cared about that. He had seen a light.