“Of course it’s straight business,” he assured her. “Of course,” and he smiled, “Doc didn’t stop to figure that he only gets two per cent. of the profits of the concern. He figures that he’s to draw dividends on the large hunk of ten thousand dollars’ worth of stock, and he’s satisfied. Why aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” she replied slowly, still with the vague feeling that something was wrong. “Really, Jim, it don’t seem to me that straight business is any more fair than crooked business.”
Wallingford was hugely disappointed.
“And that’s all the appreciation I get for confining myself to the straight and narrow!” he exclaimed.
“Oh, I didn’t mean that, Jim,” she said, with instant contrition. “You don’t know how glad I am that now, since we’re married, you have settled down to honorable things; and you’ll make a fortune, I know you will.”
“You bet I will,” he agreed. “In the meantime I have to go out and dig up seventy-five thousand dollars more of other people’s money to put into this concern; which will give me another seventy-five thousand dollars’ worth of stock! Straight business pays, Fannie!”