nothing
of it.

They distinguished only the concluding sentences:

"Why don't you drive down to the wharf with us," they heard the elder
brother ask, "and see our royal suite?"

But the younger brother laughed him to scorn.

"What's your royal suite," he mocked, "to our royal palace?"

An hour later, had the boarders listened outside the flat of the head
clerk, they would have heard issuing from his bathroom the cooling
murmur of running water and from his gramophone the jubilant notes of
"Alexander's Ragtime Band."

When in his private office Carroll was making a present of the royal
suite to the head clerk, in the main office Hastings, the junior
partner, was addressing "Champ" Thorne, the bond clerk. He addressed him
familiarly and affectionately as "Champ." This was due partly to the
fact that twenty-six years before Thorne had been christened Champneys
and to the coincidence that he had captained the football eleven of one
of the Big Three to the championship.

"Champ," said Mr. Hastings, "last month, when you asked me to raise
your salary, the reason I didn't do it was not because you didn't
deserve it, but because I believed if we gave you a raise you'd
immediately get married."

The shoulders of the ex-football captain rose aggressively; he snorted
with indignation.

"And why should I _not_ get married?" he demanded. "You're a fine one to
talk! You're the most offensively happy married man I ever met."

"Perhaps I know I am happy better than you do," reproved the junior
partner; "but I know also that it takes money to support a wife."

"You raise me to a hundred a week," urged Champ, "and I'll make it
support a wife whether it supports me or not."

"A month ago," continued Hastings, "we could have _promised_ you a
hundred, but we didn't know how long we could pay it. We didn't want
you to rush off and marry some fine girl----"

"Some fine girl!" muttered Mr. Thorne. "The Finest Girl!"

"The finer the girl," Hastings pointed out, "the harder it would have
been for you if we had failed and you had lost your job."

The eyes of the young man opened with sympathy and concern.

"Is it as bad as that?" he murmured.

Hastings sighed happily.

"It _was_," he said, "but this morning the Young Man of Wall Street did
us a good turn--saved us--saved our creditors, saved our homes, saved
our honor. We're going to start fresh and pay our debts, and we agreed
the first debt we paid would be the small one