Rollins jumped back.
"Well, he—he didn't raise my pay. I've got a big family, and there's a mortgage on my little house in Roseville, and a man in my position has to live well, or people'd talk."
Leighton relaxed. He swung back in his chair and cocked his feet on the desk.
"I'll make it two thousand five hundred for your family's sake. That's my last word."
Luke, who had again turned his back on the hagglers, the letters safely buttoned in an inside pocket of his coat, wondered how his chief could afford such an outlay.
"Is that really the best you can do?" whined Rollins.
"It is the best I will do," said Leighton. Without lowering his feet, he pulled toward him the telephone, which was attached to his desk by an arm that could be lengthened or shortened at the user's will. "Now, then, your boss has gone home long ago; but I can get him at his house; do you want to lose your job or make this money?"
Rollins surrendered.
"I guess I'll have to take your price," he said. "But it's almost a charity I'm doing."
"Right!" Leighton released the telephone, quickly swung his legs from the desk and sat straight.