No, sir, you've got
to believe in a thing. And I believe in your son.
And I don't mind telling you that, so far as he's gone,
he's a success."
"That's very kind of you."
"No kindness about it. As I was saying the other day
to a friend of mine, I've had many a fellow right out
of the street that had to work hard all his life,
and didn't begin to take hold like this son of yours."
Lapham expanded with profound self-satisfaction. As he
probably conceived it, he had succeeded in praising,
in a perfectly casual way, the supreme excellence
of his paint, and his own sagacity and benevolence;
and here he was sitting face to face with Bromfield Corey,
praising his son to him, and receiving his grateful
acknowledgments as if he were the father of some office-boy
whom Lapham had given a place half but of charity.
"Yes, sir, when your son proposed to take hold here,
I didn't have much faith in his ideas, that's the truth.
But I had faith in him, and I saw that he meant business
from the start. I could see it was born in him.
Any one could."
"I'm afraid he didn't inherit it directly from me,"
said Bromfield Corey; "but it's in the blood,
on both sides." "Well, sir, we can't help those things,"
said Lapham compassionately. "Some of us have got it,
and some of us haven't. The idea is to make the most of
what we HAVE got.
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