"
"Well, perhaps you are right, Tom. What is your idea?"
"I haven't a very clear one. It seems to me I ought
to get some business friend of ours, whose judgment he
would respect, to speak a good word for me."
"Give you a character?"
"Yes. And of course I must go to Colonel Lapham.
My notion would be to inquire pretty thoroughly about him,
and then, if I liked the look of things, to go right down
to Republic Street and let him see what he could do with me,
if anything."
"That sounds tremendously practical to me, Tom, though it
may be just the wrong way. When are you going down
to Mount Desert?"
"To-morrow, I think, sir," said the young man. "I shall
turn it over in my mind while I'm off."
The father rose, showing something more than his son's height,
with a very slight stoop, which the son's figure had not.
"Well," he said, whimsically, "I admire your spirit,
and I don't deny that it is justified by necessity.
It's a consolation to think that while I've been spending
and enjoying, I have been preparing the noblest future
for you--a future of industry and self-reliance. You never
could draw, but this scheme of going into the mineral-paint
business shows that you have inherited something of my
feeling for colour."
The son laughed once more, and waiting till his father
was well on his way upstairs, turned out the gas and then
hurried after him and preceded him into his chamber.
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