allow me leisure to talk It over with my daughter. May I ask if your
means permit you to provide a comfortable home for Fanny--the kind of
home to which she has been accustomed?"

The muscles of Mr. Gillie's nostrils contracted and for a moment it
looked as if his slight frame were again about to be shaken
convulsively by a mighty sneeze, but the spasm passed. He merely
coughed loudly to clear his throat. Then, glancing round the room in
which he was sitting, he said:

"Oh, I guess we'll be able to put on as good a front as this, all
right, all right." Tilting his chair back until it seemed physically
impossible that he could maintain his balance, he went on between
puffs of his cigar:

"You see, m'm, I'm not the kind of man that's satisfied to go on
working all his life for only just enough to keep body and soul
together. That's all right maybe for pikers--poor devils that have no
spunk--but not for 'yours truly.' I'm a pusher, a climber, I am, and,
what's more, I'm a man with ideas. No one can keep me down in the
world. One of these days I'll be driving my own automobile and Fanny
will be riding in it with me. It's no 'guff' I'm giving you. I'm the
real 'goods.'"

"You are a shipping clerk, I believe," said Mrs. Blaine when she could
get in a word sideways.

"Yes, m'm," he snapped, "a shipping clerk--what of it?"

"Is that a very--lucrative position?"