He drew his first puff from his cigar and relaxed in his chair again. “Did I ever happen to tell you about the first time I had to fire any one?” He had told her several times but she gave no intimation of this, listening with a bright eager attention as he went on. “Way back when I’d only just pulled up to being head of the hosiery department at Burnham Brothers. She was a weak-kneed, incompetent, complaining old maid who was giving the whole department a black eye with the customers--ought to have been cleared out long before. Well, at last I got my nerve up to telling her to go, and she took it hard--made a scene, cried, threatened to kill herself, said her sick sister would starve. She was ninety per cent hysteric when she finally flung out of my office; and I was all in. So I beat it right up to the chief’s office and sobbed out the whole talk on old J. P. Burnham’s bosom.” Nell smiled reminiscently. “Yes, how we all used to lean on old J. P. when things went wrong. He always made me think of a dog-tired old Atlas, holding everything up on those stooped old shoulders of his. What did he say?” “Oh, he didn’t look surprised. I suppose I wasn’t the first youngster to lose my nerve that way. He limped over and shut the door as if he was going to give me a long talk, but after all he didn’t say much. Just a few pieces of advice with long pauses to let them sink in. But I’ve never forgotten them.” “No, you never did forget what he said,” agreed Nell. She was very anxious to get on to another matter of importance but she saw by her husband’s manner that he was talking himself out of his discomfort, so she gave him another chance to go on, by remarking, “But I don’t see what _any_body can say about dismissing employees that would help a bit. It’s just horrid and that’s all there is to it.” “Well, he sort of stiffened me up, anyhow. Reminded me that running a store isn’t philanthropy, that everybody from the boss down is there not to make a living for himself but to get goods sold. Made me see that for a department manager to keep an incompetent salesperson is just as dishonest as if he’d put his hand in the cash register. Worse, because the firm can stand losing a little cash enough sight better than having its customers snapped at and slighted. But what made the biggest impression on me was when he made me think of the other girls in the department who _did_ do their work, how unfair it was to them to keep a lame duck that shoos everybody away from the department so they can’t make any sales. They don’t come into the office and throw a fit, but they don’t get a fair deal just the same. Besides incompetence is as catching as measles.” “That’s so.” Nell saw the point, thoughtfully. “But it doesn’t make it any pleasanter when the one you’re dismissing _is_ throwing the fit.”