Mr. Ackerman walked in. He was tall and slim and gray and accurately dressed. Mr. Ackerman’s business, if his varied pursuits might be thus consolidated, was that of a Director of Enterprises. He was on all sorts of directorates from banks to hospitals. He had promoted or caused to be promoted many corporate activities. He was identified in one way and another with a dozen financial and industrial concerns. He was the confidential friend and twin brother of Capital; and he was smooth, very smooth.
His handshake expressed tender, delicate sympathy.
“I should have called sooner, Mr. Kent, after the recent melancholy event,” said he, “but that I feared to intrude. I knew your father very well, very well indeed. I hope to know his son as well—or better. These changes come to us all, but I was shocked, deeply shocked. I assure you, Mr. Kent, I—was—shocked.”
“Sit down, won’t you?” said Joe. “Have a cigar?”
“Not in the morning, thank you,” said Ackerman. “My constitution won’t stand it now. Don’t mind me, though.”
He watched Joe strike a match. His gaze was very keen and measuring, as if the young man were a problem of some sort to be solved.
“And how do you find it going?” he asked. “Quite a change for you, to be saddled with a big business at a moment’s notice. If I recollect, you were at college till very recently. Yes? Unfortunate. Not that I would deprecate the value of education. Not at all. A most excellent thing. Fine training for the battle of life. But at the same time scarcely a practical preparation for the duties you have been called on so suddenly to assume.”
“That’s a fact,” said Joe. “Just at present I’d trade a couple of the years I spent there for one in the office. However, I’m learning slowly. Doing the best I can, you know.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” returned Ackerman cordially. “If I had a son—I am sorry I haven’t—and Providence in its inscrutable wisdom saw fit to remove me—we never can tell; as the Good Book says, Death comes like a thief in the night—that is how I would wish him to face the world. Bravely and modestly, as you are doing. No doubt you feel your responsibilities, eh?”
“Well, yes,” Joe admitted. “I have my experience to get, and the concern is pretty large. Naturally it worries me a little.”