use for the delivery on Christmas Day of a
parcel addressed to Miss Mary Faithful. It contained Steve's card,
some wonderful new books with an ivory paper knife slipped between
them. And when Mary wrote to thank him she found herself inclosing a
demure new silver dime, explaining:

"I must give you a coin because you gave me a knife, and unless I did
so the old superstition might come true--and cut our 'business
affections' right straight in two!"

CHAPTER IX

Mary returned to the office with a premeditatedly formal air toward
Steve. She had taken a New Year's resolution to refrain from letting
an impulsive expression of sympathy assume false meanings in her
heart. On the other hand, Steve felt a boor for having sent the books.
He was so used to being called cave man and told not to do this or say
that that he now pictured himself an awkward villain who had best
confine himself to writing checks and growling at the business world.

He almost dreaded seeing Mary lest she show she considered the gift
improper despite her delightful little note of thanks. This demeanour,
however, was of short duration. They became their real selves before
the morning passed, the medium being the question of keeping John
Gager, an old clerk pressed into service during the war period and now
superfluous.

"Are you going to let him go?" Mary reproached Steve.

"I think so; he's a doddering nuisance they tell me."

"But he's old and he has always served so faithfully. I don't think
it's right to send him away now. He does do what is expected of him."

Mary's vacation had somewhat dimmed her business sagacity.

"I suppose; but we'll be doddering idiots some day, too. No one will
keep us. No one can expect to be carried along indefinitely."

"It's the first time I have ever asked you to do such a thing," she
insisted, fearlessly. "To see him trying to act as fit as twenty-five,
wearing juvenile shirts and ties, struggling to be brisk, slangy, to
oblige everyone and step along, you know. Oh, don't turn him away just
yet; he is honest and he tries. I can't tell him, and can't you see
his old face quiver when he opens his envelope and finds the dismissal
slip?"

Steve's resolutions faded like mist before the sun. He found himself
saying: "You ought to be a little sister to the poor. I guess we'll
keep Gager for a while. He doesn't smoke cigarettes all day and try to
lie about it. How did you like those books?" he added, boyishl