"I firmly believe," continued the little loyalist, "that the Chief has done more good and saved more lives than all the doctors in the country. I'd trust him further than any regular doctor I know, even if he doesn't belong to their medical societies and all that. They're jealous of him; that's what's the matter with them." "Good for you!" laughed Hal, feeling his doubts melt at the fire of her enthusiasm. "You're a good rooter for the business." "So's the whole shop. I guess your father is the most popular employer in Worthington. Have you decided to come into the business, Mr. Surtaine?" "Do you think I'd make a valuable employee, Miss Milly?" he bantered. But to Milly Neal the subject of the Certina factory admitted of no jocularity. She took him under advisement with a grave and quaint dubiety. "Have you ever worked?" "Oh, yes; I'm not wholly a loafer." "For a living, I mean." "Unfortunately I've never had to." "How old are you?" "Twenty-five." "I don't believe I'd want you in my department, if it was up to me," she pronounced. "Do you think I wouldn't be amenable to your stern discipline?" Still she refused to meet him on his ground of badinage. "It isn't that. But I don't think you'd be interested enough to start in at the bottom and work up." "Perhaps you're right, Miss Neal," said Hal, a little startled by the acuteness of her judgment, and a little piqued as well. "Though you condemn me to a life of uselessness on scant evidence." She went scarlet. "Oh, please! You know I didn't mean that. But you seem too--too easy-going, too--" "Too ornamental to be useful?" Suddenly she stamped her foot at him, flaming into a swift exasperation. "You're laughing at me!" she accused. "I'm going back to my work. I won't stay and be made fun of." Then, in another and rather a dismayed tone, "Oh, I'm forgetting about your being the Chief's son." Hal jumped to his feet. "Please promise to forget it when next we meet," he besought her with winning courtesy. "You've been a kind little friend and adviser. And I thank you for what you have said." "Not at all," she returned lamely, and walked away, her face still crimson. Returning to the executive suite, the young scion found his father immersed in technicalities of copy with the second advertising writer. "Sit down, Boyee," said he. "I'll be through in a few minutes." And he resumed his discussion of "black-face," "36-point," "indents," "boxes," and so on. Left to his own devices Hal turned idly to the long table. From the newspaper which the Reverend Norman Hale had left, there glared up at him in savage black type this heading:-- CERTINA A FAKE _Religious Editor Shows Up Business and Professional_ _Methods of Dr. L. Andre Surtaine_