He had been with Bliss, Haviland and Company almost a year when one afternoon, Gordon, the bookkeeper, came out of the private office a dull tallowy white, with blue-drawn lips. He stopped beside John's desk.
“Mr. Haviland wants to see you,” he said. “You are to go in now,—right away.”
As John turned to obey the summons he ran over uneasily all those matters that had gone wrong in his department and for which he could possibly be held responsible. As he raised his hand to knock on the door of the private office he decided that happen what might he could not afford to lose his temper. He reached this decision quickly, and when he heard Haviland call “Come in,” pushed open the door. Haviland was seated at his desk, and the expression on his face was not reassuring.
“Oh! It's you, Norton; take a seat,—I want to speak to you.”
John closed the door and at a sign from Haviland sat down in the chair at the managing director's elbow, which one of the clerks who retained a sense of humor had christened “The Mourners' Bench.” Haviland swung round and faced him squarely.
“I shall have to send Gordon away,” he said. “How would you like his place?”
John knew that the bookkeeper received twenty-five hundred dollars a year, and he drew in his breath quickly.
“You do your work well,” Haviland continued graciously, without giving John a chance to reply. “I have never had occasion to find any fault with you; of course, you understand we shan't pay you what we are paying Gordon,—he has been with the house forty years. It's a very fine opening for a young man, Norton, and I am glad to be able to offer it to you. It will mean an advance of two hundred a year at once.”
“I shouldn't like to feel I was taking Gordon's place—” John said.
The red line of Haviland's neck with its heavy veins swelled out over the top of his collar; there was a moment's silence, and then he said curtly: “You are not taking Gordon's place;—he is to stay on until the end of the month. That will give him ample time to look up another place.”
“I doubt it,” John retorted, unconsciously imitating his employer's tone and manner. “He's an old man, Mr. Haviland, and I don't think any one will care to make an opening for him.” Haviland frowned.