Mrs. Cramp sat for a full minute staring at Jacob, her stout hands, from which the gloves had been taken, and her white lace ruffles lying composedly on her brown gown.
“Not take Tom into the business!” she repeated, in a slow, astonished tone. “Why, Jacob, what do you mean?”
“That,” said Jacob. “Tom will stay on at a good salary: I shall increase it, I dare say, every two years, or so; but he will not come into the firm.”
“You can’t mean what you say.”
“I have meant it this many a year past, Mary Ann. I have never intended to take him in.”
“Jacob, beware! No luck ever comes of fraud.”
“Of what? Fraud?”
“Yes; I say fraud. If you deprive Tom of the place that is justly his, it will be a cheat and a fraud, and nothing short of it.”
“You have a queer way of looking at things, Mrs. Cramp. Who has kept the practice together all these years, but me? and added to it little by little, and made it worth double what it was; ay, and more than double? It is right—right, mind you, Mary Ann—that my own son should succeed to it.”