tners."

Mr. Day looked crestfallen for about a minute.

"Oh, if you put it that way, why, of course, Mr. Forbes. We could not
expect to sell our goods with a lot of dummies behind our counters."

"We've had worse than 'dummies,'" spoke up Mr. Denton. "We've had
skeletons and lunatics and almost corpses! Just go down and look at
them, men, women and children! There's not ten healthy human beings on
any floor in the building; yet they came to us, many of them, glowing
with health, like Miss Marvin."

"Are they worse than at other stores?" asked Mr. Day, sullenly.

"I don't know," was the answer; "but that doesn't matter."

"They get their pay regularly," said Mr. Forbes. "Further, we do not
solicit their services, nor compel them to stay with us."

"No; we merely take advantage of their wretched conditions to secure
their services cheap," said Mr. Denton bitterly; "then instead of
bettering their lot we grind them lower and lower, until at last they
die either forgiving or cursing us."

There was another silence more oppressive than the first; then Mr. Day
rose slowly and started to leave the office.

"We are exciting ourselves foolishly, I think," he said loftily;
"neither you nor I, my partners, can hope to remedy the conditions of
labor."

He closed the door softly, and was free from the unpleasant atmosphere
of the office.

As he did so, a young girl stepped out of the elevator and walked
directly to the door which he had just closed behind him. He turned and
looked at her--she was as a saint. Almost instinctively it came to him
what his partner had said, that she was "not afraid of work and was
honestly religious."

"Pshaw! What nonsense!" he muttered. "Think of our patterning after a
saint! It is strange how death will upset some men, but they'll get over
it when they hear the money jingling!"

He opened the door to his private office just as a boy came upstairs
with a message from Mr. Gibson.

"Mr. Watkins was taken to the hospital last night," it read; "are we
expected to do anything? There's a reporter from the _Herald_."

"I'll send down the answer in a moment," he said to the boy, "or, wait;
tell Mr. Gibson to say that we are looking into the case, and if our
employee is found to be deserving he will be cared for by the firm. The
reporter can call again if he wishes anything further."

With the note in his hand he went back to the superintendent's office.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FAITH BEC