"Surely. I'll introduce you to him." "Don't fash yoursel'," said he with a smile, "that'll no be necessary, for he was in the store while ye were at yer lunch to-day and I had a convarsation with him." "What's the trouble, then?" I asked. "Merely this," said he, and he put his arm on my shoulder very kindly. "That mon, Simpson, left $527.00 worth of accounts which he did no pay and I believe by the agreement ye made wi' him that ye're liable for them." I was too thunderstruck to say anything! What a hash I had made of my first week's business! So far as I could see, I had given up a good job for one with very little more real money, but a lot of care and worry; I had been robbed of about $1,300.00 in stock and $500.00 in unexpected liabilities. My first week's business, then, showed me a loss of nearly $2,000.00! I began to think I was not so all-fired clever as I thought I was! Betty was a little brick! When I told her all about it, she said: "Well, I don't see anything so _very_ dreadful in that. If you have it in you to make a business man, you can soon increase the sales of the store so that you will be making all you thought you would, and perhaps it won't hurt you to lose a little money at the beginning. Even now, you are much better off than a great many other people are. If only Simpson doesn't demand his $3,500.00 at once, so that you don't lose the farm"--I shivered at the thought--"you'll pull through all right." When I figured up the sales at the end of the week there was nothing like the $560.00 that I was figuring on. It was only $281.15. I had more respect then for proprietors of retail stores than I had a week before! I hoped that next week I would have that division of expense worked out so that I could know just what my expenses were going to be. CHAPTER V BETTY MAKES A PROMISE On the following Monday, I was in the store, feeling kind of blue over the general muddle I had made of things, when who should go by but Betty and Stigler! If there was one man in the town I disliked, it was Stigler. He was one of those narrow-faced individuals who goes around with a perpetual sneer. I never heard of him saying or doing anything good to any one. It was said of him that he was so mean that he grew a wart on the back of his neck to save buying a collar button! Stigler was in love with Betty. I didn't blame him for that; but what she could see in a fellow like him got me! I was jealous--I know I was jealous, and I told Betty so when she accused me of it that night. "Dawson," she said, "you act like a jealous, spoiled child." And then the love, that had been growing in my heart, became too great to contain. "Betty," I cried hotly, "you know how much I love you! Do you wonder that I'm jealous, when I see you with that man?" "And why shouldn't I be with him?" she said archly. "Well, you can't be with him any more," I said. "Hoity-toity! and who are you to tell me whom I shall or shall not go with?"