tle every hour of the day to endure such
a thing. Suppose the Bishop had come in instead of myself? Would he
consider such actions creditable to the great purpose for which the
church takes up collections twice each year throughout his diocese?"

Trubus tilted back and forth on his toes and tapped the ends of his
plump fingers together. He was sparring for time. The girl looked at
him saucily, and the offending visitor shrugged his shoulders as he
quietly started for the door.

"Tut, tut, my dear! I shall reprimand the girl."

"You shall discharge her at once!" insisted Mrs. Trubus, her eyes
flashing. "She will disgrace the office and the great cause."

Trubus was in a quandary. He looked about him. Miss Emerson, with a
confident smile, walked toward the general office on the left.

"I should worry about this job. I'm sick of this charity stuff anyway.
I'm going to get a cinch job with a swell broker I know. He runs a lot
of bunco games, too--but he admits. Don't let the old lady worry about
me, Mr. Trubus, but don't forget that I've got two weeks' salary coming
to me. And you just raised my weekly insult to twenty-five dollars
last Saturday, you know, Mr. Trubus."

With this Parthian shot, she slammed the door of the general
stenographers' room, and left Mr. Trubus to face his irate wife.

"You pay that girl twenty-five dollars for attending to a telephone,
William? Why, that's more money than you earned when we had been
married ten years. Twenty-five dollars a week for a telephone girl!"

"There, my dear, it is quite natural. She is especially tactful and
worth it," said Trubus, in embarrassment. "You are not exactly tactful
yourself, my dear, to nag me in front of an employee. As the
Scriptures say, a gentle wife...."

Mrs. Trubus gave the philanthropist one deep look which seemed to cause
aphasia on the remainder of the Scriptural quotation.

For the first time Trubus noticed Mary Barton, standing in embarrassed
silence by the door, wishing that she could escape from the scene.

"Who is this young person, my dear?"

"This is a young girl who is in deep trouble, and without a position
through no fault of her own. I brought her down to your office to have
you help her, William."

"But, alas, our finances are so low that we have no room for any
additional office force," began Trubus.

"There, that will do. If you pay twenty-five dollars a week to the
telephone operator no wonder the f