“Great little chink, that!”

Fanny laughed.  Teasingly she said: 

“He’s not a Chinaman, Jim.  Don’t you know a Japanese when you see one?”

“They all look alike to me,” he grinned.

Profiting by the butler’s absence, the shipping clerk started on a tour of critical inspection of the salon.  Looking around, he exclaimed with enthusiasm: 

“Say—­this is some room, eh?”

Virginia had left the window and was admiring some water-colors on the walls.  Overhearing the exclamation, she looked up, her glance taking in the whole room.

“Yes—­it is beautiful,” she said ecstatically.

Fanny, who had been diligently rubbing the back of her magnificent gilt chair to see if it was real gold leaf, broke in: 

“While this place was being built I read in the paper that Mr. Stafford was to pay $15,000 a year for his rooms.”

Jimmie opened wide his eyes in amazement.

“Fifteen thousand a year—­just for his rooms!” he exclaimed incredulously.

He looked at Virginia as if expecting her to confirm the statement.

“Yes,” insisted Fanny, “$15,000 a year.”

The shipping clerk gave a low whistle.

“Why, that’s nearly $300 a week!” he cried.

Fanny gave an affirmative nod, and her fiance, putting on an injured air as if Mr. Stafford’s expenses had to come out of his own pocket, went on: 

“Three hundred dollars—­just for his rooms, while I slave a whole week, from eight in the morning till six at night for a measly fourteen.”  With a disgusted shrug of his shoulders he added:  “I tell you there’s something rotten in this country.”

Virginia looked around apprehensively.  She was afraid the butler might have heard the ejaculation, which, considering he was Mr. Stafford’s guest, was certainly inexecrable taste.  Not that she was surprised.  By this time she had learned not to look to her prospective brother-in-law for Chesterfieldian manners.  Quickly she said: 

“Mr. Stafford didn’t get more than fourteen when he was your age.  He was poor, too.”

“Yes,” chimed in Fanny with a toss of her head, “and when they raised you from twelve at Christmas you thought you were doing great.  I remember how chesty you were about it.”

Jimmie grinned.  In tones meant to be tender he replied: 

“Only because I figured that I might be gettin’ eighteen pretty soon and then we could get married.”  Eying her sheepishly, he went on:  “Do we still have to wait till I get eighteen, Fanny?”

“We certainly do,” she retorted promptly.  “A couple simply can’t live on less than eighteen.”

The shipping clerk thrust his hands in his pockets and began to stride up and down the room.  Peevishly he exclaimed: 

“I know it.  That’s what makes me so sore when I read about millionaires like Stafford having luxurious private yachts, giving fifty thousand for a picture and things like that.  They have so much money they don’t know what to do with it, and yet all that stands between me and happiness is four dollars a week and I can’t get it.”