Larsen wanted to telephone Mrs. Sturtevant and tell her all about it, but I said we'd never had much business from her and I'd hate, just before Christmas, to cause a girl to lose her job. "Besides," I said, "she'd deny it, of course."
I told Betty about it when I got home. All she did was to come over and give me a kiss and say, "I'm glad, boy dear, you are strong enough to do business honestly."
A few days later, Mrs. Sturtevant came into the store and bought quite a number of things. When she was through, she said to me:
"Didn't one of my maids come in here yesterday?"
"Yes, Mrs. Sturtevant."
"Why didn't she buy?"
"I couldn't satisfy her," I said with a smile.
"How do you mean, you couldn't satisfy her?" persisted Mrs. Sturtevant.
"Why, we—we couldn't agree on prices!"
"You are a very foolish young man!" I looked at her blankly—I didn't know what she meant. "If you hadn't a mother to look after you, I don't know what you would do!"