I had lost my temper, I knew I had; but I was mighty glad I had; for I felt if I hadn't I wouldn't have given him the lesson he deserved. And incidentally, I had learned another lesson, and that is, never rehire a discharged employee. Then and there I determined that, so long as I was in business, if an employee ever left me for any reason whatever, I would never reinstate him. He would be through forever. [Illustration: "I WAS SO RAGING MAD THAT I WAS PREPARED FOR ALMOST ANYTHING"] When I got home that night, Betty remarked: "Why, look at the knuckles on your hand! They have blood on them! What have you done?" "Oh, I just knocked into the cash register $37.00 which was walking out of the door," I returned jauntily. And then I told her the whole story. She came over and kissed me and said: "Good boy!" and her eyes flashed as she said it. "I'm proud of you!" Those four words meant more to me than the success of this sale. Betty and I went to Boston the next day. I wanted to call at Bates & Hotchkin's to buy a few things I needed, and also I wanted to call on Mr. Barker, to whom Mr. Sirle had given me a card of introduction some time ago. I intended that we should have a nice little dinner, and take in a show and stay at a good hotel for the night and come back the next day. All by way of celebration. "You are an extravagant man," said Betty severely when I told her this. "What train do we leave by? I'll be ready." CHAPTER XIX A TRIP TO BOSTON We had a great time in Boston. In the evening we went to see "Pollyanna" and I told Betty I had fallen in love with Patricia Collinge. "I'll get jealous," she said, and squeezed my arm. When we reached the city I called on Bates & Hotchkin, ordered some goods, and told them about the sale. I had a talk with Mr. Peck, the credit man who called on me the time I had had trouble paying my bills. "That was fine," he said, "but pretty risky work--pretty risky work. You succeeded with it all right this time, but next time I wouldn't risk so much on one sale. "By the way," he asked, "how much did you sell during the period of the sale, other than the reduced-price goods, or does that $1,517.00 include the sale of regular goods as well?" "Oh, no," I replied. "That represents the money we took in from the goods which were reduced. I haven't figured yet what the sales for general goods were the first three days of this week, but I know that last week we sold $824.00 worth of goods, so that we had a sale on general goods of $320.00. Our sale really helped rather than hindered our general turn-over." "Splendid," he said. "To what do you attribute mostly the success of the sale?" "Well, I don't know. But I do know that the enthusiasm of my fellows helped a lot, and the help I got from Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Company. In fact, I think everybody had something to do with it. I know Mrs. Black did," turning around to Betty.