Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/55

 "A few thousand and the house, enough that mother could live with what I could send her out of my pay."

"You can't afford to work without wages here, then," rather gruffly, as if the discovery carried offense.

Barrett was disturbed by Nearing's tone. He felt that this puerile attempt at investigating the secret affairs of the company had put him in such disfavor that nothing would come of his long planning and ardent hopes, Nearing had seen through him so easily as to make his scheme appear foolish. He found himself wondering how he ever could have taken hold of it with such sincerity.

"I'll put you on the payroll at sixty dollars a month, but keep it under your hat," Nearing said. "That's a little above the wages of a beginner."

"I wouldn't want to do anything to get me in bad with the boys," Barrett protested, glad for the darkness which covered his outer confusion.

"That will rest with you, Ed," Nearing reminded him, back in a word to his paternal form.

"It's mighty fine and generous of you, Senator Nearing, but I'd rather you'd make it about forty, or whatever it is that greenhorns pull down. I don't want to be a load on the company just because my family owns stock in it."

"All right, Ed, we'll say forty-five and found, all except clothes, of course. And in the morning I want you to go through the books and satisfy yourself that everything is being done, and always has been done, open and above board."

Thank you for the offer, Senator Nearing." Bar-