Almost to the second he was at the door again. Stepping inside, he awaited their verdict, not trying to conceal his anxiety. A great relief overspread his face at Spurling's first words.
"All right, Mr. Whittington! Percy can come—on trial. He can stop with us a month. Then if we don't hitch together he'll have to leave. But if he likes it, and we like him, he can stay the rest of the summer. If the bunch earns anything over and above what it would have gotten if he hadn't been with us, he'll get it. If it doesn't, he won't."
Five minutes later the millionaire entered Percy's room. The latter was smoking a cigarette and playing solitaire. He glanced up expectantly, a couple of cards in his hand. As he sat down opposite his son, John Whittington had never looked grimmer. The vein swelled blue on his flushed temples, and the lines on his face were deeply drawn.
"Now, Percy, you and I are going to talk business. Put down those cards and chuck that coffin-nail into the stove. Why can't you use a man's smoke if you're going to smoke at all? I've been talking with Mr. Blodgett, and I find it's the same old story. You've wound up your preparatory course with a worse smash than you had this afternoon. You haven't made good. I'm beginning to doubt if you can make good. You've done worse every year. You're nothing now, and if you keep on like this you'll soon be worse than nothing. You can put down one thing good and solid—I won't stand for your going the pace like Chauncey Pike or George Brimmer's son. I'd give half my money—yes, the whole of it, if you had the stuff in you that young Spurling has. I mean it."
He stopped, then began again:
"I'm going to give you one chance more, and only one. It's quicksilver, kill or cure, and a stiff dose at that. I've just been talking with Spurling and his two friends. They're to spend the summer fishing from an island off the Maine coast, to earn money to start their college course. And you're going with them!"
"What! Me! I rather guess not! Nailed to the mast three months out on a rock like that? Not for a minute! Besides, I'm booked for Bar Harbor day after to-morrow. Got my ticket already."
"Let's look at it!"
Percy pulled out the slip of pasteboard and passed it over.
His father thrust it into his pocket.