up at him, astonished. "You'll leave there next Saturday,"
he said. "I've got to have you."

"You don't anything o' the kind," Walter told him, sharply. "Do you
expect to pay me anything?"

"I'd pay you about what you been getting down there."

"Then pay somebody else; _I_ don't know anything about glue. You get
somebody else."

"No. You've got to---"

Walter cut him off with the utmost vehemence. "Don't tell me what I got
to do! I know what I got to do better'n you, I guess! I stay at Lamb's,
see?"

Adams rose angrily. "You'll do what I tell you. You can't stay down
there."

"Why can't I?"

"Because I won't let you."

"Listen! Keep on not lettin' me: I'll be there just the same."

At that his father broke into a sour laughter. "THEY won't let you,
Walter! They won't have you down there after they find out I'm going."

"Why won't they? You don't think they're goin' to be all shot to pieces
over losin' YOU, do you?"

"I tell you they won't let you stay," his father insisted, loudly.

"Why, what do they care whether you go or not?"

"They'll care enough to fire YOU, my boy!"

"Look here, then; show me why."

"They'll do it!"

"Yes," Walter jeered; "you keep sayin' they will, but when I ask you to
show me why, you keep sayin' they will! That makes little headway with
ME, I can tell you!"

Adams groaned, and, rubbing his head, began to pace the floor. Walter's
refusal was something he had not anticipated; and he felt the weakness
of his own attempt to meet it: he seemed powerless to do anything but
utter angry words, which, as Walter said, made little headway. "Oh, my,
my!" he muttered, "OH, my, my!"

Walter, usually sallow, had grown pale: he watched his father narrowly,
and now took a sudden resolution. "Look here," he said. "When you say
Lamb's is likely to fire me because you're goin' to quit, you talk like
the people that have to be locked up. I don't know where you get such
things in your head; Lamb and Company won't know you're gone. Listen: I
can stay there long as I want to. But I'll tell you what I'll do: make
it worth my while and I'll hook up with your old glue factory, after
all."

Adams stopped his pacing abruptly, and stared at him. "'Make it worth
your while?' What you mean?"

"I got a good use for three hundred dollars right now," Walter said.
"Let me have it and I'll quit Lamb's to work for you. Don't let me have
it and I SWEAR I won't!"

"Are you crazy?"

"Is everybody cr