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Some men are born rich; some inherit a pair of scissors fitted to strong thumbs and forefingers, some have to lie awake nights wondering what they will do next to help their surplus run to waste, and some pass sleepless hours devising plans by which they can catch in their empty pockets the clippings and drippings of all three. Muggles's host was none of these.
This done Muggles snatched a ladder from an adjacent building, threw it against the threatened lumber, skipped up its rungs like a squirrel and stood in silhouette against the flaring blaze, his dove-gray flannels flapping about his thin legs, his attenuated arms gyrating orders to the relief party, who had spread the rugs and blankets on the fire-endangered side of the pile of lumber and who were now soaking them with water under Muggles's direction.
Was not the family note-paper emblazoned with the counterfeit presentment of a Stork Rampant caught by the legs and flopping its wings over a flattened fish-basket; and did not Muggles's cigarette-case, cuff-buttons and seal ring bear a similar design?
Then he rose from his seat, reached for his hat and strolled out on the portico to take a look around before he turned in. Muggles's masterful grasp of a science of which his companions knew as little as they did of the Patagonian dialects came as a distinct surprise. What else had the beggar been picking up in the way of knowledge? Maybe Muggles wasn't such a goat, after all.
"What do I do when somepin' catches fire?" the boss replied to one of Muggles's inquiries they were sitting in the office alone, Bender and little Billy having gone fishing with Jackson. "I'd blow that big whistle ye see hooked to the safety, first. Ye never heard it? well, don't! It'll scare the life out o' ye. If the mill catches before we can get the pumps to work it's all up with us.
Muggles's inherent good humor and willingness to oblige had made an impression on the lumber-boss and he was always willing to answer any fool question the young New Yorker asked a privilege which he never extended to his comrades.
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