kind of a wife has he got?"

"She's just as thrifty as he is. They've got the poverty bug, I guess.
Don't worry about Skinner, Mac. The fear of the poorhouse has kept many
a good man in his place."

McLaughlin turned to Perkins. "But we can't afford to lose him. He's
too honest, too faithful, too loyal."

"I know his value as well as you do, but we don't want to put wise
goggles on him."

"We've got to raise him sometime," McLaughlin urged mildly.

"Yes, but we won't do it till we have to. If he were a salesman, he'd
make us do it. But a man in a cage--why the very fact that he stays in a
cage--can't you see?"

"Then you would n't do it?"

"Of course not!"

"But how?"

"Bluff him--in a tactful way. Let him think we've nothing but his
welfare at heart; that we love him too much to stand in his way; that
it's breaking our hearts to lose him. Still, if he can better himself
we'll have to stand the pain. You're an old poker-player, Mac; you know
how to handle the situation."

"But supposing you're mistaken in Skinner? Supposing he hangs out for a
raise?"

"If he does, we'll have to give it to him. Offer him ten dollars a week
more. But remember, Mac, only as a last resort!"

So when Skinner stepped in at five o'clock, McLaughlin made the bluff.
Skinner did n't call it. Instead, he bowed submissively, almost with
relief, and without a word left for home.

Everything contributed to the drab occasion for Skinner. The weather was
bad, the ferryboat steamier and smellier than ever. As he took his seat
in the men's cabin, he was full of drab reflections--disappointment, deep
disgust. Abysmal gloom surrounded him. His thoughts were anything but
flattering to his employers, or to himself, for that matter, for Skinner
was a just man. They were the cussedest, meanest people that he'd ever
known. But what was the matter with him, Skinner? Why had n't he made a
fight for the raise? It was that old, disgusting timidity that had been
a curse to him ever since he was a boy. Others had pushed ahead through
sheer cheek, while he held back, inert, afraid to assert himself. By
gad, why had n't he made a fight for a raise? They could only sack him,
hand him the blue envelope!

Sack him! The thought brought back the days when he had wandered from
office to office, a suppliant, taking snubs, glad to get anything to do.
The memory of the snubs had made more or less of a slave of him, for
Skinner was a p