He had four children. He would make an ideal
helpmate, worshipping his employer with that rare quality of being
interested in his ideas and aims beyond the mere earning of a salary;
seeing, too, in that employer more than he, the latter, supposed. For,
while he wrote verses on the sly, 'my chief,' as he now preferred to
call him, lived poetry in his life.
'He's got it, you know, my dear,' he announced to his wife, as he
kissed her and arranged his tie in the gilt mirror over the plush
mantelpiece in the 'parlour'; 'he's got the divine thing in him right
enough; got it, too, as strong as hunger or any other natural
instinct. It's almost functional with him, if I may say so'--which
meant 'if you can understand me'--'only, he's deliberately smothered
it all these years. He thinks it wouldn't go down with other business
men. And he's been in business, you see, from the word go. He meant to
make money, and he couldn't do both exactly. Just like myself---'
Minks wandered on. His wife noticed the new enthusiasm in his manner,
and was puzzled by it. Something was up, she divined.
'Do you think he'll raise your salary again soon?' she asked
practically, helping him draw off the paper cuffs that protected his
shirt from ink stains, and throwing them in the fire. 'That seems to
be the real point.
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