I DO NOT demand," said Mr. Pepper, "I simply suggest a change. If you wish me to resign"--his self-deprecatory manner bespoke an impossible supposition--"very well. But, if you see fit to find me a new assistant----" He paused, with an interrogatory cough. It was the senior partner who answered, "We shall consider the matter." The advertising manager's lean face took on an expression of satisfaction. He bowed and disappeared through the door. Young Kaufmann, the junior partner, smiled covertly. But the elder man's face bespoke keen disappointment. For it must be explained that Mr. Pepper's simple announcement bore vitally upon the only dissension that had ever visited the firm of Kaufmann & Houghton during the thirty years of its existence. In 1875, when John Houghton, fresh from college, had come to New York to find his fortune, the elder Kaufmann had been a candy manufacturer with a modest trade on the East Side. Young Houghton had taken the agency of a glucose firm. The disposal of this product had brought the two together, with the result that a partnership had been formed to carry on a wholesale confectionery business. Success in this venture had led to new and more profitable fields--the chewing-gum trade. The rise to wealth of these two was the result of the careful plodding of the German workman, who kept the "K. & H." products up to an unvarying standard, joined with the other's energy and acumen in marketing the output. And this mutual relation had been disturbed by but one difference. When Houghton was disposed to consider a college man for a vacancy, Kaufmann had always been ready with his "practical man dot has vorked hiss vay." And each time, in respect to his wishes, Houghton had given in, reflecting that perhaps (as Kaufmann said) it had been that he, himself, was a good business man in spite of his college training, not because of it; and, after all, college ideals had sunk since _his_ time. And the college applicant had been sent away. Young Johann Kaufmann graduated from grammar school. Houghton suggested high school and college. "Vat? Nein!" said the elder Kaufmann. "I show him how better the gum to make." And he did. He put on an apron as of yore and started his son under his personal supervision in the washing-room. He took off his apron when Johann knew all about handling chicle products, from importing-bag to tin-foil wrapper. Then he died. And this year troublesome conditions had come on. The Consolidated Pepsin people were cutting in severely. Orders for the great specialty of K. & H.--"Old Tulu"--had fallen. Something had to be done. Houghton, now senior partner, had proposed, and young Kaufmann agreed, that an advertising expert be secured. But the agreement ended there. For the first words of the junior partner showed Houghton that the spirit of the father was still sitting at that desk opposite, and smiling the same fat, phlegmatic smile at his supposed weakness for "dose college bitzness."