It surely had been a dreadful week with Larsen sick. I never knew how much I had been leaning on him. When he came back, I was resolved, to look after him better than I had done before. I guess there are a lot of bosses, the same as I, who really don't realize how valuable their employees are to them until they have lost them. Some employees probably dominate--there's that word dominate again!--in some phase of the store's activities in such an unobtrusive way that their work is not appreciated as it should be. The trouble is that the good worker is usually a poor self-advertiser, while the clever self-advertiser often cannot deliver the goods that he is advertising. I determined that, if ever I got a really big store with a lot of help, I would find some way of knowing what every one did, so that the fellow that did things would not be pushed to one side by the fellow who merely elevated himself with talk. Just as I was going to bed I had an inspiration, and I found what I would try to dominate in--SERVICE! CHAPTER XXXIII A BUSINESS PROPOSITION When the Mater got back, I felt more like a human being again. What a wonderful thing a mother is! A fellow doesn't realize how much his mother means to him until he wants her badly. Barrington's demand that I pay off the mortgage on the farm had been worrying me, so I went to the bank and saw Mr. Blickens to find out if I could get the bank to lend me the necessary $1,250.00. Blickens said the bank couldn't possibly do it, but that he knew a private individual who could perhaps be induced to take over the mortgage. I asked him to look into it and let me know. A couple of days afterward he telephoned me to call and see him, and then he told me that he could raise the $1,250.00, to be covered by a first mortgage on the farm; but that, on account of the unsalability of the property at a forced sale, his friend would have to have ten per cent. interest. I whistled at this. "Well, take it or leave it, my young friend," he said. "If you can do better, why do it; but remember that Barrington will foreclose, unless you raise that money for him by the first of February." Blickens had a note all made out, and I noticed his name appeared on it. "I--I thought it was--some one you knew who was going to--" "A mere formality; I am just doing it for a friend." I knew at once that Blickens was his own friend in this case. I noticed also that I had to reduce the loan at the rate of $50.00 a month. "That may seem a high rate of interest to you," said Blickens, smoothly; "but really I am doing it for your good." That was what Dad had always said when he spanked me, but I never could see it his way!