heir
gasoline stench.

Skinner wondered if Lewis and others like him could afford their way of
living. He had always looked forward with a certain satisfaction to the
time when the smash would come to some of these social butterflies, with
their mortgaged automobiles, and then he, Skinner, with his snug little
bank account, would be the one to laugh and to chatter. This reflection
greatly consoled him for wearing cheap clothes. He'd rather have his
money in the bank than on his back. But the smash had n't come to any of
them as yet, he reflected. On the contrary, the more money they seemed
to spend, the more they seemed to make. He wondered how they managed.

CHAPTER II

HOW SKINNER GOT HIS RAISE

Presently, Wilkes, in the seat just ahead of Skinner, folded his
newspaper and turned to his neighbor. "Are you going to the reception
to the new pastor at the First Presbyterian?"

"Am I going? You bet I am. We're all going."

The remark brought Skinner back to the things of the moment with a
jerk. By Jove! Honey was going to that reception and she'd set her
heart on his going with her. She'd been making over a dress for it.
It seemed to Skinner she was always making something over. He had made
up his mind that she'd buy something new--a lot of new things--when
he'd got his raise. But now--well, it was a deuced good thing she
_was_ handy with her needle.

He could see her waiting for him at the door with her customary kiss.
Hang it! how was he going to break the news to her? If he had n't been
so asininely cock-sure!--a "cinch," he thought contemptuously. He'd
talked "cinch" to her so much that he'd almost come to believe it
himself. But, after all, must he tell her to-night? Why not
temporize? Say McLaughlin was out of town? Also it would never do to
tell her that he'd been afraid to go to the boss. But she'd have to
know it sometime, why not right away? Like having a tooth out, it was
better done at once.

The thought of Honey's disappointment was overshadowed by an awful
realization that suddenly came to Skinner. How could he square the
fact that McLaughlin & Perkins, Inc., had turned him down with the way
he'd bragged about his value to the firm? Skinner frowned deeply.
McLaughlin had no business to refuse him--a percentage of the money he
handled was his by rights. Somehow he felt that he had been denied
that which was his own.

What would Honey think of him? He could n't bear