dding duds, that
hundred and ninety of his girl's savings that went into furniture----"

"We got to meet our instalments every month first, Jimmie. That's what
we want--no debts and every little darling piece of furniture paid up."

"We--I'm going to pay it, too."

"And my Jimmie is going to work to get himself promoted and quit being a
sorehead at his steady hours and all."

"I know more about selling, honey, than the whole bunch of dubs in that
store put together if they'd give me a chance to prove it."

She laid her palm to his lips.

"Shh-h-h! You don't nothing of the kind. It's not conceit, it's work is
going to get my boy his raise."

"If they'd listen to me, that department would----"

"Sh-h-h! J. G. Hoffheimer don't have to get pointers from Jimmie Batch
how to run his department store."

"There you go again. What's J. G. Hoffheimer got that I ain't? Luck and
a few dollars in his pocket that, if I had in mine, would----"

"It was his own grit put those dollars there, Jimmie. Just put it out of
your head that it's luck makes a self-made man."

"Self-made! You mean things just broke right for him. That's two-thirds
of this self-made business."

"You mean he buckled right down to brass tacks, and that's what my boy
is going to do."

"The trouble with this world is it takes money to make money. Get your
first few dollars, I always say, no matter how, and then when you're on
your feet scratch your conscience if it itches. That's why I said in the
beginning, if we had took that hundred and ninety furniture money and
staked it on----"

"Jimmie, please--please! You wouldn't want to take a girl's savings of
years and years to gamble on a sporty cigar proposition with a card-room
in the rear. You wouldn't, Jimmie. You ain't that kind of fellow. Tell
me you wouldn't, Jimmie."

He turned away to dive into the barrel. "Naw," he said. "I wouldn't."

The sun had receded, leaving a sudden sullen gray; the little square
room, littered with an upheaval of excelsior, sheet-shrouded furniture,
and the paper-hanger's paraphernalia and inimitable smells, darkening
and seeming to chill.

"We got to quit now, Jimmie. It's getting dark and the gas ain't turned
on in the meter yet."

He rose up out of the barrel, holding out at arm's-length what might
have been a tinsmith's version of a porcupine.

"What in-- What's this thing that scratched me?"

She danced to take it. "It's a grater, a darling grater for horser