The Son of his Father. Cullum Ridgwell
is not the first bill you've handed me, but—but it's going to be the last. Guess your baby clothes can be packed right up. Maybe they'll be all the better for it when you hand 'em on to—your kiddie."
The trouble had passed out of the younger man's eyes. They were filled with the humor inspired by his father's manner of dealing with the affair in hand.
"That's all right," he said. "I seem to get that clear enough."
"I'm glad." The millionaire twisted the cigar into the corner of his mouth. "We can pass right on to—other things. You've been one of my secretaries for three years, and it don't seem to me the work's worried you a lot. Still, I put you in early thinking you'd get interested in the source of the dollars you were handing out in bunches. Maybe it wasn't the best way of doing it. Still, I had to try it. You see, it's a great organization I control—though you may not know it. I control more millions than you could count on your fingers and toes, and they've cost me some mental sweat gathering 'em together. Some day you've got to sit in this chair and talk over this 'phone, and when you do you'll be—a man. You see, I don't fancy my pile being invested in cut flowers and automobiles for lady friends. I don't seem to have heard that thousand-dollar parties to boys who can't smoke a five-cent cigar right, and girls who're just out for a good time anyway, are liable to bring you interest on the capital invested, except in the way of contempt. And five-thousand dollar apartments are calculated to rival the luxury of Rome before its fall. Big play at 'draw' and 'auction' are two diseases not provided for amongst the cures in patent med'cine advertisements, and as for the older vintages in wines, they're only permissible in folks who've quit worrying to scratch dollars together. None of these things seem to me good business, and in a man at the outset of his career some of 'em are—immoral. You've had your preliminary run, and I'll admit you've shown a fine turn of speed. But it smacks too much of the race-track, and seems to me quite unsuited to the hard highroad of big finance you're destined to travel.
"Just one moment," he went on, as, with flushing cheeks and half-angry eyes, his son was about to break in. "You haven't got the point of this talk yet. This bill you've handed me don't figure as largely in it as you might guess. I've thought about things these months. I don't blame you a thing. I'm not kicking. The fact you've got to grab and get your hind teeth into is that there comes a time when two can't spend one fortune with any degree of amicability. It's a sort of proposition like two dogs and a bone. Now from a canine point of view that bone certainly belongs to one of those dogs. No two dogs ever stole a bone together. Consequently, the situation ends in a scrap, and it isn't always a cert. that the right thief gets the bone. How it would work out between us I'm not prepared to guess, but, as 'scrap' don't belong to the vocabulary between us, we'll handle the matter in another way. Seeing the fortune—at present—belongs to me, I'll do the spending in—my own way. My way is mighty simple, too, as far as you're concerned. I'm going to stake you all you need, so you can get out and find a bone you can worry on your own. That's how you're going to pay this bill. You're going to get busy quitting play. We are, and always have been, and always will be, just two great big friends, and I'd like you to remember that when I say that the life you're living is all right for a boy, but in a man it leads to dirty ditches that aren't easy climbing out of, and—you can't do clean work with dirty hands. When you've shown me you're capable of collecting a bone for your own worrying—why, you can come right back here, and I'll be pleased and proud to hand over the reins of this organization, and I'll be mighty content to sit around in one of the back seats and get busy with the applause. Now you talk."
Gordon began without a moment's hesitation. Something of his heat had passed, but it still remained near the surface.
"Quite time I did," he cried almost sharply. "Look here, father, I don't think you meant all you said the way your talk conveyed it. To me the most important of your talk is the implied immorality of my mode of life. Then the inconsistent fashion in which you point my way towards—big finance."
His eyes lit again. They had suddenly become dangerously bright.
"Here, we're not going to quarrel, nor get angry," he went on, gathering heat of manner even in his denial. "We're too great friends for that, and you've always been too good a sportsman to me, but—but I'm not going to sit and listen to you or anybody else accusing me of immorality without kicking with all my strength!"
He brought one great fist down on the desk with a bang that set the ink-wells and other objects dancing perilously.
"I'm not angry with you. I couldn't get angry with you," he proceeded, with a suppressed excitement that added to his father's smile; "but I tell you right here I'll not stand for it from you or anybody. My only crime is spending your money, which you have always encouraged me to do. From my university days to now my whole leisure has been given up to athletics. A man can't live immorally and win the contests I have won. I don't need to name them. Boxing, sculling, running, baseball, swimming. You know that. Any sane man knows that. The money I've spent has been spent in the ordinary course of the life to which you have brought me up. You have always impressed on me the great position you occupy and the necessity for keeping my end up. That's all I have to say about my debts, but I have something to say on the subject of the inconsistency with which you censure immorality in the same breath as you demand my immediate plunge into the mire of big finance."
He paused for a moment. Then, as abruptly as it had arisen, his heat died down, and gave place to the ready humor of his real nature.
"Gee, I want to laugh!" He sprang from his seat and began to pace the floor, talking as he moved. His father watched him with twinkling, affectionate eyes. "Immorality? Psha! Was there ever anything more immoral than modern finance? You imply I have learned nothing of your organization in the three years I've been one of your secretaries. Dad," he warned, "I've learned enough to have a profound contempt for the methods of big corporations in this country, or anywhere else. It's all graft—graft of one sort or another. Do you need me to tell you of it? No, I don't think so. Twenty-five millions wouldn't cover the fortune you've made. I know that well enough. How has it been made? Here, I'll just give you one instance of the machinations of a big corporation. How did you gain control of the Union Grayling and Ukataw Railroad? Psha! What's the use? You know. You hammered it, hammered it to nothing. You got your own people into it, and sat back while they ran it nearly into bankruptcy under your orders. Then you bought. Bought it right up, and—sent it ahead. Immoral? It makes me sweat to think of the people who must have lost fortunes in that scoop. Immoral? Why, I tell you, Dad, any man can make a pile if he sticks to the old saw: 'Don't butt up against the law—just dodge it.' It's only difficult for the fellow who remembers his Sunday-school days. So far, Dad, I've avoided immorality. I'm waiting till I start on big finance to become its victim. That's my talk. Now you do some."
His father nodded. Then he said dryly, "This carpet cost me five hundred dollars, that chair fifty. Try the chair."
Gordon laughed at the imperturbable smile on his father's face, but he flung his great body into the chair.
James Carbhoy deliberately knocked the ash from his cigar. It was many years since he had received such a straight talk from any man. Some of it had stung—stung sharply, but the justice or injustice of it he set aside. His whole mind and heart were upon other matters. He took no umbrage. He swept all personal feeling aside and regarded the boy whom he idolized.
"We've both made some talk," he observed, "but I think the last word's with me. I don't seem to be sure which of us has put up the bluff. Maybe we both have. Anyway, right here and now I'm going to call your hand. I offered you a stake. You say it's easy to make a pile. Can you make a pile?"
Gordon shrugged.
"Why, yes. If I follow your wish and embark on—big finance. And—forget my Sunday school."
The millionaire gathered up the sheaf of loose accounts on the desk and held them up. His smile was grim and challenging.
"One hundred thousand dollars these bills represent. The cashier will hand you a check for that amount. Say, you've shown your ability to spend that amount; can you show your ability to make it?"
For a moment the boy's blue eyes avoided the half-ironical smile of his father's. Then suddenly