"That's the beauty of the whole business!" laughed his employer.
"An auto—all for ourselves!" exclaimed Fanny, enthusiastically. "Isn't that lovely?"
Her husband looked dubious. Doggedly he said:
"I don't know that we ought to accept presents from anybody now, not even from—Robert."
The Christian name dropped as gingerly out of his mouth as if it had been a hot potato. At last he had summoned up courage enough to do what it had long been his ambition to do—call his employer by his first name. He felt it would be a victory for him—a triumph over the other men at the office to be on such terms of intimacy. Besides it was his right. Wasn't he in the family?
Stafford turned quickly. There was a limit of endurance even to this clown's impudence.
"What's that?" he demanded curtly.
Not abashed and encouraged by the railroad promoter's previous good nature, Jimmie stood his ground and spoke up boldly:
"I said, I wasn't sure that we ought to accept presents even from you, Robert."
Quickly Stafford raised his hand. Coldly and distantly he said: