dishonest acts that disgrace other lines of business. So long as I make my profits honestly, I am honestly entitled to them, no matter how big they are.

The secretary, being quite content with the havoc she had wrought in her employer's complacency over his charitableness, nodded, and contented herself with a demure assent to his outburst.

"Yes, sir," she agreed, very meekly.

Gilder stared at her for a few seconds, somewhat indignantly. Then, he bethought himself of a subtle form of rebuke by emphasizing his generosity.

"Have the cashier send my usual five hundred to the Charities Organization Society," he ordered. With this new evidence of his generous virtue, the frown passed from his brows. If, for a fleeting moment, doubt had assailed him under the spur of the secretary's words, that doubt had now vanished under his habitual conviction as to his sterling worth to the world at large.

It was, therefore, with his accustomed blandness of manner that he presently acknowledged the greeting of George Demarest, the chief of the legal staff that looked after the firm's affairs. He was aware without being told that the lawyer had called to acquaint him with the issue in the trial of Mary Turner.

"Well, Demarest?" he inquired, as the dapper attorney advanced into the room at a rapid pace, and came to a halt facing the desk, after a lively nod in the direction of the secretary.

The lawyer's face sobered, and his tone as he answered was tinged with constraint.

"Judge Lawlor gave her three years," he replied, gravely. It was plain from his manner that he did not altogether approve.

But Gilder was unaffected by the attorney's lack of satisfaction over the result. On the contrary, he smiled exultantly. His oritund voice took on a deeper note, as he turned toward the secretary.

"Good!" he exclaimed. "Take this, Sarah." And he continued, as the girl opened her notebook and poised the pencil: "Be sure to have Smithson post a copy of it conspicuously in all the girls' dressing-rooms, and in the reading-room, and in the lunch-rooms, and in the assembly-room." He cleared his throat ostentatiously and proceeded to the dictation of the notice:

"Mary Turner, formerly employed in this store, was to-day sentenced to prison for three years, having been convicted for the 

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