"Vat? Nein!" said the elder Kaufmann. "I show him how better the gum to
make."
And he did. He put on an apron as of yore and started his son under his
personal supervision in the washing-room. He took off his apron when
Johann knew all about handling chicle products, from importing-bag to
tin-foil wrapper. Then he died.
And this year troublesome conditions had come on. The Consolidated
Pepsin people were cutting in severely. Orders for the great specialty
of K. & H.--"Old Tulu"--had fallen. Something had to be done.
Houghton, now senior partner, had proposed, and young Kaufmann agreed,
that an advertising expert be secured. But the agreement ended there.
For the first words of the junior partner showed Houghton that the
spirit of the father was still sitting at that desk opposite, and
smiling the same fat, phlegmatic smile at his supposed weakness for
"dose college bitzness."
They had compromised upon Mr. Pepper, secured from Simpkins' Practical
Advertising School. But at the end of six months, Pepper's so-called
"follow-up campaign" had failed to meet materially the steady inroads of
the western men. He had explained that it was the result of his need of
an assistant. It was determined to give him one.
Then, one night as he sat in his library, John Houghton had looked into
a pair of blue eyes and promised to "give Tom Brainard the chance." In
consequence he had had his hair tousled, been given a resounding kiss
and a crushing hug from the young lady on his knees. For Dorothy
Houghton, despite her nineteen years, still claimed that privilege from
her father.
In that way, for the first time, a college man had come into the employ
of K. & H., and been made the assistant of Mr. Pepper at the salary he
demanded--"any old thing to start the ball rolling."
And now had come the information that the senior partner's long-desired
experiment had ended in failure.
Young Kaufmann turned to his work with the air of one who has given a
child its own way and seen it come to grief.
"I--I suppose," Houghton said slowly, "we'll have to let Brainard go."
And then a peculiar thing happened. Through the open window, floating in
the summer air, he seemed to see a familiar figure. It was dressed in
fluffy white, and carried a parasol over its shoulders. It fluttered
calmly in, seated itself on the sill, and gazed at him with blue eyes
that were serious, reproachful.
"Daddy!" it said, and it brushed away a wisp of hair
|