The boy confided to his sister when the house had quieted:
“I seen lots o’ funny lights in the box-shop in the night! This ain’t no news to me! Huh, I thought dad had more brains!”
“Brains? Whatter you mean?” demanded Milly.
The young worldly wiseman laughed, turned over and went back to sleep.
II
It was Milly who carried the news to Nathan the following morning.
Johnathan never arrived at the office until nine or ten o’clock. But he never failed to set the alarm for five-thirty. When it banged off, he called to Nathan and kept calling him until he had the boy awakened and groggily dressing.
Johnathan believed that a proprietor should always be the first one at a place of business in the morning. It set the proper example for the rest of the “help.” So Nathan always reached the place at a quarter to seven. Milly called Nat over behind the paper-cutter. She whispered what her father had seen before she shed her big over-sized cloak for work.
Nathan’s face colored queerly.
“Please keep this to yourself, Milly,” he ordered. “If it gets out, and the other girls believe it, they may quit in fright and refuse to come back, especially if I should want them to work overtime, nights.”