"While this place was being built I read in the paper that Mr. Stafford was to pay $15,000 a year for his rooms."
Jimmie opened wide his eyes in amazement.
"Fifteen thousand a year—just for his rooms!" he exclaimed incredulously.
He looked at Virginia as if expecting her to confirm the statement.
"Yes," insisted Fanny, "$15,000 a year."
The shipping clerk gave a low whistle.
"Why, that's nearly $300 a week!" he cried.
Fanny gave an affirmative nod, and her fiancé, putting on an injured air as if Mr. Stafford's expenses had to come out of his own pocket, went on:
"Three hundred dollars—just for his rooms, while I slave a whole week, from eight in the morning till six at night for a measly fourteen." With a disgusted shrug of his shoulders he added: "I tell you there's something rotten in this country."
Virginia looked around apprehensively. She was afraid the butler might have heard the ejaculation, which, considering he was Mr. Stafford's guest, was certainly inexecrable taste. Not that she was surprised. By this time she had learned not to look to her prospective brother-in-law for Chesterfieldian manners. Quickly she said: