“I don’t quite understand.”
“It’s this way,” Crooks explained: “I’m getting on, and outside of Jack I’ve nobody. Now you’re going to marry her. It had to be somebody, I suppose, and I’m glad it’s you. Still, there’s the business. It’s mine, I made it and I like it—but it’s beginning to drive me too much. I can’t go away for a month or a week without being afraid things will be tied up in hard knots before I get back. If I had a man as good as Wright it might be different, but I haven’t. I have to be on the job myself all the time, and I’m getting too old for that. I want to take it easy a little and get the most out of the years that are left me.”
“I see,” said Joe as Crooks paused.
“You’ll know better how it is yourself thirty years from now,” Crooks continued. “I’ve nobody but Jack. If the boys had lived they’d have been able to run the business and let me sit back and just give them a hand now and then. But they died.” He was silent for a long moment. “I’ll tell you something, Joe, you were the one thing I envied your father. I saw you growing up, a good, clean, healthy young fellow, with no bad habits to speak of—oh, I don’t mean that you were any saint; I suppose you kicked up once in a while, same as any healthy young colt, but there was nothing vicious about you—and it seemed hard luck that out of my three boys one wasn’t left me. Well, never mind that. Now all I’ve got will be Jack’s when I get my time. And so I was thinking of making you a little proposition.”
“Yes,” said Joe wondering what this was leading up to. “What is it, Mr. Crooks?”
“I was wondering,” Crooks pursued, “whether you’d care to combine our businesses?”
Joe was thoughtful for a moment. His eyes narrowed a little, and his brows drew down in a slight frown. He looked at Crooks steadily. The old lumberman returned his gaze.
“Is there anything behind this, sir?” Joe asked.
“Behind it—how? You don’t think I’m putting up a job to freeze you out, do you?”
“No, not that. But are you making this proposition for Jack’s sake? I mean, do you think I’d make a mess of my business if I ran it alone? Because if that’s really the reason I’d like to show you.”