Houghton, now senior partner, had proposed, and young Kaufmann agreed, that an advertising expert be secured. But the agreement ended there. For the first words of the junior partner showed Houghton that the spirit of the father was still sitting at that desk opposite, and smiling the same fat, phlegmatic smile at his supposed weakness for "dose college bitzness."
They had compromised upon Mr. Pepper, secured from Simpkins' Practical Advertising School. But at the end of six months, Pepper's so-called "follow-up campaign" had failed to meet materially the steady inroads of the western men. He had explained that it was the result of his need of an assistant. It was determined to give him one.
Then, one night as he sat in his library, John Houghton had looked into a pair of blue eyes and promised to "give Tom Brainard the chance." In consequence he had had his hair tousled, been given a resounding kiss and a crushing hug from the young lady on his knees. For Dorothy Houghton, despite her nineteen years, still claimed that privilege from her father.
In that way, for the first time, a college man had come into the employ of K. & H., and been made the assistant of Mr. Pepper at the salary he demanded—"any old thing to start the ball rolling."
And now had come the information that the senior partner's long-desired experiment had ended in failure.
Young Kaufmann turned to his work with the air of one who has given a child its own way and seen it come to grief.
"I—I suppose," Houghton said slowly, "we'll have to let Brainard go."
And then a peculiar thing happened. Through the open window, floating in the summer air, he seemed to see a familiar figure. It was dressed in fluffy white, and carried a parasol over its shoulders. It fluttered calmly in, seated itself on the sill, and gazed at him with blue eyes that were serious, reproachful.
"Daddy!" it said, and it brushed away a wisp of hair by its ear—just as another one, long ago, had used to. "Daddy!" it faltered. "Why did I ask you to give him the place, if it wasn't because—because——"
The spell was broken by Kaufmann's voice. "Whatefer you do, I am sooted," he was saying. It might have been his father. "But if w'at Pepper says about Brainard——"