“Petty, you have no more idea of business than a goat,” criticised Montgomery, and Paul lowered his head in humble confession.  “That man who calcimines your studio could figure on a piece of work with more intelligence than you reveal.  I’ll pay $2,500.  It’s only a fair price, and I can’t afford anything cheap in this place.”

“At this rate you won’t be able to afford anything,” said Pettingill to himself.

And so it was that Pettingill and a corps of decorators soon turned the rooms into a confusion of scaffoldings and paint buckets, out of which in the end emerged something very distinguished.  No one had ever thought Pettingill deficient in ideas, and this was his opportunity.  The only drawback was the time limit which Brewster so remorselessly fixed.  Without that he felt that he could have done something splendid in the way of decorative panels—­something that would make even the glory of Puvis de Chavannes turn pallid.  With it he was obliged to curb his turbulent ideas, and he decided that a rich simplicity was the proper note.  The result was gorgeous, but not too gorgeous,—­it had depth and distinction.

Elated and eager, he assisted Brewster in selecting furniture and hangings for each room, but he did not know that his employer was making conditional purchases of everything.  Mr. Brewster had agreements with all the dealers to the effect that they were to buy everything back at a fair price, if he desired to give up his establishment within a year.  He adhered to this rule in all cases that called for the purchase outright of substantial necessities.  The bump of calculativeness in Monty Brewster’s head was growing to abnormal proportions.

In retaining his rooms at Mrs. Gray’s, he gave the flimsy but pathetic excuse that he wanted a place in which he might find occasional seasons of peace and quiet.  When Mrs. Gray protested against this useless bit of extravagance, his grief was so obviously genuine that her heart was touched, and there was a deep, fervent joy in her soul.  She loved this fair-faced boy, and tears of happiness came to her eyes when she was given this new proof of his loyalty and devotion.  His rooms were kept for him just as if he had expected to occupy them every day and every night, notwithstanding the luxurious apartments he was to maintain elsewhere.  The Oliver Optic books still lay in the attic, all tattered and torn, but to Margaret the embodiment of prospective riches, promises of sweet hours to come.  She knew Monty well enough to feel that he would not forget the dark little attic of old for all the splendors that might come with the new dispensation.