"Well," Betty went on, while I stood by, too astonished to say anything, and indeed not knowing what was coming, "Mr. Black and I talked over, right from the beginning, the advisability of starting a profit-sharing plan. Now, we haven't worked it out—in fact, he has only just decided definitely to go ahead with it; but he purposes that, by the time he has finished his first year in business, if not even sooner, he will arrange some plan whereby he can divide a share of his profits, if he makes any, with his help. . . . We talked it over yesterday,"—what little liars these women are sometimes!—"and Mr. Black said he wanted to have the women-folk, who made his little staff so effective, know what he was trying to do for them. You see, Mrs. Wilkes, Jimmie here will get a little bit of profit—let's see, every three months you were thinking of paying the bonus, wasn't it, Dawson?"—I gulped and looked at Betty with amazement, and I must say, admiration, and nodded—"so, you see, that Jimmie, every three months, will have a little check to bring home as a little extra money, which he can put in the savings bank; and—"
"How much is it likely to be?" asked Jimmie eagerly.
"Bless the boy, I don't know. You may not be worth anything. You may be having more now than you're worth," she said teasingly.
"Not my Jimmie," said Mrs. Wilkes a little indignantly. "My Jimmie"—and here she entered into a pæan of praise of Jimmie.
Then Betty continued:
"And Mr. Jones will have a little check which will probably come in very handily for—furniture?" she said, looking at Elsie. Elsie's only answer was a blush. "And you, Mrs. Larsen, will probably have a check from Mr. Larsen, every three months, which will help, at any rate, to give Mr. Larsen the protection for his old age that he has so thoroughly earned."
Mrs. Larsen was completely won over, and, to my surprise, she burst out crying bitterly. Betty quietly put her arm around her waist and led her upstairs. They came down in a few minutes, Mrs. Larsen red-eyed, but smiling; and we immediately started the question of handling toys for Christmas. The women were all strongly in favor of it, so we decided to have toys for Christmas.
I didn't know the first thing about toys; I didn't know where to buy them; I didn't know what we ought to sell. But, as we were going to sell them, I hoped that my luck would be with me.
After they had gone Betty told me that Mrs. Larsen had said, when they were upstairs, that she had been urging Larsen to find another job, as she felt he wouldn't make any progress with me.
"Perhaps that's why he has looked worried sometimes lately, and hasn't seemed to work with the same delight that he did when I first bought the business," I said.