"What do you mean?" said Bojo, flushing angrily.
"Well, I'll tell you what I mean," said Flaspoller, discretion to the winds. "When you come into a firm that has treated you generously as we have, put up your salary without waiting to be asked, and you bring in orders, confidential orders, to sell five hundred shares to-day, a thousand to-morrow, like you sell yourself, and your friends sell too—if you let your firm go on selling and don't know what's up, you're either one big jackass or a—"
"Or a what?" said Bojo, advancing.
Something in the menacing eye caused the little broker to halt abruptly with a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders.
"I wouldn't go too far, Flaspoller," said Bojo coldly. "If this was a mistake, I paid for it too, as you know. You know what I dropped."
"I know nothing," said Flaspoller, recovering his courage with his anger, and planting himself defiantly in the young fellow's path. "I know only what you lost—here, and I know too what we lose."
"Good heavens, do you mean to insinuate that I did anything crooked?" said Bojo loudly, yet at the bottom ill at ease.
"Shut up now," said Hauk, as Flaspoller started on another angry tirade. "Look here, Mr. Crocker, there's no use wasting words. The milk's spilt. Well, what then?"
"I'm sorry, of course," said Bojo, frowning.
"Of course you understand after what's happened," said Hauk quietly, "it would be impossible for us to make use of your services any more."