in Worthington. Have you decided to come into the business, Mr.
Surtaine?"

"Do you think I'd make a valuable employee, Miss Milly?" he bantered.

But to Milly Neal the subject of the Certina factory admitted of no
jocularity. She took him under advisement with a grave and quaint
dubiety.

"Have you ever worked?"

"Oh, yes; I'm not wholly a loafer."

"For a living, I mean."

"Unfortunately I've never had to."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-five."

"I don't believe I'd want you in my department, if it was up to me," she
pronounced.

"Do you think I wouldn't be amenable to your stern discipline?"

Still she refused to meet him on his ground of badinage. "It isn't
that. But I don't think you'd be interested enough to start in at the
bottom and work up."