“It takes all my salary, sir,” replied the clerk, pulling out his handkerchief and arranging his moustache, not because it needed arranging, but because he wanted to conceal his face from his employer.
He knew that it was as red as fire, for he could feel it burn.
“Are you sure that you don’t spend more than your salary?” asked the merchant, in a very significant tone of voice.
“Oh, yes, sir! yes, sir!—quite sure!” replied Mr. Howard, with more earnestness than the occasion seemed to demand.
He wanted to add, “You surely do not suspect me of dishonesty?” but the words stuck in his throat.
“Well,” said the merchant, after looking sharply at the clerk for a moment, “all I have to say is, that you can make twenty-five dollars go much further than I can. I cannot permit so much extravagance among those in my employ, for, to say the least, it looks suspicious. So I have called you in here for the purpose of telling you that we shall have no further occasion for your services. There is the money we owe you. Good-day!”
“I am well out of that scrape,” said Mr. Howard to himself, as he walked rapidly away from the store. “I have been looking for it for a long time, and I am glad it is over. They can’t prove anything against me, for I have been very careful, and never took more than two dollars at a time. Of course, when the receipts ran up to two or three hundred dollars a day, so small an amount as that wouldn’t be missed. Now, where shall I look for another situation? Well, I’ll not think about that now. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ as Shakespeare says. I guess I’ll smoke.”
This soliloquy would seem to indicate that trouble sat very lightly on Mr. Howard’s shoulders, and that he was not very well posted in either Shakespeare or the Bible.
It would also seem to indicate that the suspicions his late employer entertained regarding his honesty were well founded.
Mr. Howard did not care a snap of his finger for those suspicions; but he did care for the loss of his situation, for he knew that if he did not work he could get no money to spend.