he's willing to let you and me run things a while longer."

"I don't know what to do. You see, Skinner proved to be an awfully
good man, just so soon as we gave him his head. He's an all-round man.
When he was cashier, he not only could collect money from anybody who
had a cent, and without losing business either, but he steered us away
from some very bad risks that those two enterprising young salesmen,
Briggs and Henderson, tried to 'put over' on us."

"That was his business. He was cashier."

"But see what he's done since we made him manager of the sales
department," urged McLaughlin. "He has not only opened up new
territory and got in new customers, but he's reclaimed old, abandoned
fields of operation and got back a lot of old fellows. He's delivered
the goods all along the line, Perk. Besides that, it was Skinner that
got us to put in that new machinery over in Newark. Why, it's already
saved a quarter of its cost in fuel. Also, Perk, he's a great little
adviser."

"I know his value, Mac, as well as you do."

McLaughlin laughed. "We did n't either of us know it till we sent him
out West. He kept his light under a bushel so long."

"Kept it in a cage, you mean."

"If he goes over to the Starr-Bacon people, he takes his methods with
him, and you know--customers follow methods."

"What we want to do," said the junior, "is to offset the Starr-Bacon
offer without you and me having to sell our machines and take to the
subway in order to pay his salary. How would it do to make him general
manager? Skinner's ambitious--he's looking for honor."

"No," said McLaughlin, after pondering a few moments, "if we keep him
on a salary and he remains an employee only, he will still be
susceptible to outside offers. The only thing to do is to make him a
partner! That's the only way to keep him!"

"Make him a partner, Mac? This isn't a firm any more; it's a
corporation."

"Same thing--you and I own it, don't we?"

"Quite so."

"Well, all we've got to do's to give him a block of stock--ain't it?"

"Question 's, how much?"

"Enough to hold him."

"But how much would that be?" Perkins insisted.

"I 'll have to feel him out."

"I guess you 're right." Perkins paused a bit,--then, "Well, Mac, the
worm turned--you didn't head him off?"

"Who wants to head off such a worm? Let him turn! The more he turns
the better for us! Do you know what his first turn meant in terms of
cash? No? Just ring for