Explore "Pike's Peak or Bust" by Edwin Lefevre on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
He was only seventeen, fair-haired and rosy-cheeked, with girlish blue eyes, when he applied for the vacancy in the office of Tracy & Middleton, Bankers and Brokers. His name was Willis N. Hayward, and he was a proud boy, indeed, when he was selected out of twenty "applicants" to be telephone-clerk for the firm.
From 10 A. M. until 3 P. M. he stood by Tracy & Middleton's private telephone on the floor of the Stock Exchange-the Board Room-receiving messages from the office-chiefly orders to buy or sell stocks for customers-and transmitting the same messages to the "Board member" of the firm, Mr. Middleton; also telephoning Mr. Middleton's reports to the office. He spoke with a soft, refined voice, and his blue eyes beamed so ingenuously upon the other telephone-boys in the same row of booths, that they said they had a Sally in their alley, and they immediately nicknamed him Sally.