Suddenly Mr. Day raised his head with a little jerk. His cheeks became inflated as he tried to assume his usual bearing.
"It is possible we have been a little thoughtless," he said sweetly, "but our subordinates should attend to these matters; that is what they are paid for."
Mr. Forbes wheeled around in his chair and faced the speaker.
"I have hired no subordinates on that basis," he said distinctly. "My orders have been to get all the work possible out of a clerk, and when they were incompetent or in any way useless, turn them out and get new ones, and I believe that I have acted with the full consent of my partners."
Mr. Day looked crestfallen for about a minute.
"Oh, if you put it that way, why, of course, Mr. Forbes. We could not expect to sell our goods with a lot of dummies behind our counters."
"We've had worse than 'dummies,'" spoke up Mr. Denton. "We've had skeletons and lunatics and almost corpses! Just go down and look at them, men, women and children! There's not ten healthy human beings on any floor in the building; yet they came to us, many of them, glowing with health, like Miss Marvin."
"Are they worse than at other stores?" asked Mr. Day, sullenly.
"I don't know," was the answer; "but that doesn't matter."
"They get their pay regularly," said Mr. Forbes. "Further, we do not solicit their services, nor compel them to stay with us."