"I don't know that it's quite so bad
as that; but the thing had certainly crossed my mind.
I don't know how it's to be approached, and I don't know
that it's at all possible. But I confess that I 'took to'
Colonel Lapham from the moment I saw him. He looked
as if he 'meant business,' and I mean business too."
The father smoked thoughtfully. "Of course people do
go into all sorts of things, as you say, and I don't
know that one thing is more ignoble than another,
if it's decent and large enough. In my time you would
have gone into the China trade or the India trade--though
I didn't; and a little later cotton would have been
your manifest destiny--though it wasn't mine; but now
a man may do almost anything. The real-estate business
is pretty full. Yes, if you have a deep inward vocation
for it, I don't see why mineral paint shouldn't do.
I fancy it's easy enough approaching the matter. We will
invite Papa Lapham to dinner, and talk it over with him."
"Oh, I don't think that would be exactly the way, sir,"
said the son, smiling at his father's patrician unworldliness.
"No? Why not?"
"I'm afraid it would be a bad start. I don't think it
would strike him as business-like."
"I don't see why he should be punctilious, if we're not."
"Ah, we might say that if he were making the advances.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111