"I don't want to hold you to anything you don't care for, Cousin Andrew," he began, when his relative had again put the receiver aside, "but I understood--" "Oh, that's all right. I've no doubt I said it. I do recall something of the sort, vaguely, at a time when I thought your father might want-- In any case we can fix you up. Sure to be something you can do. When'd you like to begin?" Hugh expressed his willingness to be put into office at once. "Just so. Turn you over to old Williamson. He licks the young ones into shape. Suppose your father'll think it hard of us to go against him. But on the other hand he may be pleased--he'll know you're in safe hands." It was a delicate thing for Hugh to attempt, but as he was going into business not from an irresistible impulse toward a financial career, but in order to make enough money to marry on, he felt obliged to ask, in such terms as he could command, how much money he should make. "Just so!" Cousin Andrew took up the receiver again. "Want to speak to Mr. Williamson. . . . Oh, Williamson, how much is Duffers getting now? . . . And how much before that? . . . Good! Thanks!" The result of these investigations was communicated to Hugh. He should receive Duffers's pay, and when he had earned it should come in for Duffers's promotion. The immediate effect was to make him look startled and blank. "What?" was his only question; but it contained several shades of incredulity. Cousin Andrew took this dismay in good part. "Why, what did you expect?" Hugh could only stammer: "I thought it would be more." "How much more?" Hugh sought an answer that wouldn't betray the ludicrous figure of his hopes. "Well, enough to live on as a married man at least." The banker's good nature was proved by the creases of his rubber smile. "What did you think you'd be worth to us--with no backing from your father?" The question was of the kind commonly called a poser. Hugh had not, so I understood from him, hitherto thought of his entering his kinsfolks' banking-house as primarily a matter of earning capacity. It wasn't to be like working for "any old firm." He had prefigured it as becoming a component part of a machine that turned out money of which he would get his share, that share being in proportion to the dignity of the house itself and bearing a relation to his blood connection with the dominating partners. When Cousin Andrew had repeated his question Hugh was obliged to reply: "I wasn't thinking of that so much as of what you'd be worth to me." "We could be worth a good deal to you in time." There was a ray of hope. "How long a time?"