that a year?"

"Five hundred and twenty dollars."

"Five hundred and twenty dollars a year--that'd be more than a thousand
dollars in two years!"

"Yes," Skinner affirmed.

"And in four years? Think of it--over two thousand dollars?"

"Better not count your chickens, Honey,--I'm superstitious, you know."

Skinner began to see his ten-dollar raise growing to gigantic
proportions. He had visions of himself at the end of four years
hustling to "make good" "over two thousand dollars." For the first
time he questioned the wisdom of promoting himself. But he could n't
back out now. He almost damned Honey's thrift. He would be piling up
a debt which threatened to become an avalanche and swamp him, and for
which he would get no equivalent but temporarily increased adulation.
How could he nip this awful thing in the bud? He did n't see any way
out of it unless it were to throw up his job and cut short this
accumulating horror. But at least he had a year of grace--two years,
four years, for that matter--before he would have to render an
accounting, and who could tell what four years might bring forth?
Surely, in that time he'd be able to get out of it somehow.

However, he had cast the die, and no matter what came of it he would
n't back out. If he did, Honey would never believe in him again. His
little kingdom would crumble. So he grinned. "I think I'll have a
demi-tasse, just to celebrate."

So Honey brought in the demi-tasse.

Then Honey took her seat again, and resting her elbows on the table,
placed her chin in the cup of her hands and looked at Skinner so long
that he flushed. Had her intuition searched out his guilt, he wondered.

"And now, I've got a surprise for you, Dearie," she said, after a
little.

After what Skinner had gone through, nothing could surprise him, he
thought. "Shoot!" said he.

"You thought I got you to get that raise just to build up our bank
account--did n't you?"

"Sure thing!" said Skinner apprehensively, "Why?"

"You old goosie! I only got you to think that so you'd go _after_ it!
That is n't what I wanted it for--at all!"

Skinner's mouth suddenly went dry.

"We've been cheap people long enough, Dearie," Honey began. "We've
never dressed like other people, we've never traveled like other
people. If we went on a trip, it was always at excursion rates. We've
always put up at cheap hotels, we've always bargained for the lowest
rate, and we've always eaten in c