little at a time out of the salary he'll pay you. He will pay you a
good enough salary so you can do it nicely--"

Johnny laughed impatiently. "Let your dad jump up my wages to a point
where he can pay himself back, you mean," he retorted. "Oh--h, no,
Mary V. You can't kid me out of this, so why keep on arguing? You
don't seem to take me seriously. You seem to think this is just a whim
of mine. Why, good golly! I should think it would be plain enough to
you that I've got to do it if I want to hold up my head and look men in
the face. It's--why, it's an insult to my self-respect and my honesty
to even hint that I could do anything but what I'm going to do. The
very fact that your dad ain't going to force the debt makes it all the
more necessary that I should pay it.

"Why, good golly, Mary V! I'd feel better toward your father if he had
me arrested for being an accomplice with those horse thieves, or
slapped an attachment on the plane or something, than wave the whole
thing off the way he's doing. It'd show he looked on me as a man,
anyway.

"I'll be darned if I appreciate this way he's got of treating it like a
spoiled kid's prank. I'm going to make him recognize the fact that I'm
a _man_, by golly, and that I look at things like a man. He's got to
be proud to have me in the family, before I come into the family. He
ain't going to take me in as one more kid to look after. I'll come in
as his equal in honesty and business ability,--instead of just a new
fad of Mary V's--"

"Well, for gracious sake, Johnny! If you feel that way about it, why
didn't you say so? You don't seem to care what I think, or how I feel