and place him next to things uncommercial, untainted, high, and
noble. He did not quite know what an aristocrat was, but be
believed being a compatriot made him an aristocrat. When
customers were rude, when Mr. John or Mr. Robert was overbearing,
this idea enabled David to rise above their ill-temper, and he
would smile and say to himself: "If they knew the meaning of the
blue rosette in my button-hole, how differently they would treat
me! How easily with a word could I crush them!"

But few of the customers recognized the significance of the
button. They thought it meant that David belonged to the Y. M. C.
A. or was a teetotaler. David, with his gentle manners and pale,
ascetic face, was liable to give that impression.

When Wyckoff mentioned marriage, the reason David blushed was
because, although no one in the office suspected it, he wished to
marry the person in whom the office took the greatest pride. This
was Miss Emily Anthony, one of Burdett and Sons' youngest, most
efficient, and prettiest stenographers, and although David did
not cut as dashing a figure as did some of the firm's travelling
men, Miss Anthony had found something in him so greatly to admire
that she had, out of office hours, accepted his devotion, his
theatre tickets, and an engagement ring. Indeed, so far had
matters progressed, that it had been almost decided when in a few
months they would go upon their vacations they also would go upon
their honeymoon. And then a cloud had come between them, and from
a quarter from which David had expected only sunshine.

The trouble befell when David discovered he had a great-
great-grandfather. With that fact itself Miss Anthony was almost