“Button yourself up, Arthur Wellington,” said Caleb, when he had finished with him and flung him to the floor where he lay writhing and shrieking and unbraced. “If I were you, Arthur Wellington, I’d be ashamed to make such an exhibition of myself in front of girls. That’s enough! Stop that blubbering. Do you hear? Stop it, and get to work. Stop it, will you, Arthur Wellington, unless you want another thrashing twice as bad.” One of the apprentices was placing the stars on the fender to dry them before the fire which Caleb had lighted to make himself the tea. “Be careful, Edward Riggs, not to put those stars too close, or you’ll be having an accident.” “They’re all right where they are, aren’t they, Mr. Fuller?” “Yes, as long as you’re careful,” said Caleb. “Now I’m going upstairs to my office to work. We all have our work to do, you know. And if I hear any laughing or chattering down here, I’ll make some of you see more stars than you’ll ever make in a week.” One of the girls managed to titter at this and was rewarded by one of Caleb’s greasy smiles. Then he left the apprentices to their work and went into the question of accounts, hidden in his sanctum, which was on the first floor and hardly bigger than a powder-closet. Indeed, Caleb’s high stool and desk with two ledgers and an iron box chained to a staple in the floor filled it so nearly full that when the manager was inside and hard at work nobody could get in unless he squeezed himself into the corner. Caleb’s expressed object in keeping Madame Oriano’s books so meticulously was that if at any moment a purchaser came along with a firm offer for the business, lock, stock, and barrel, he would obtain a better price for it. It was useless for the owner to protest that no inducement or offer of any kind would tempt her into a sale, Caleb insisted. He was as always outwardly subservient to his mistress, but he insisted. And she would tire of arguing with him when she had fired off a few Italian oaths and shrugged her shoulders in contempt of such obstinacy. “Besides,” Caleb used to point out, “so long as I keep my books properly, anybody can see my honesty. If I kept no books, people would be saying that I was robbing you.” “I would notta believe them.” “No, you mightn’t believe them until you were angry with me about something else; but you might believe it then, and I shouldn’t care to be accused of robbing you. It would hurt me very deeply, ma’am.”