“'No, no, father,' I replied, for the odious supposition quite upset me; 'it's nothing so horribly vulgar as trade; it's a speculation, don't y' know. There'll be eight millions of preferred stock; you are to take a million. Also, you are to give me the million at once.'
“'What is this speculation?' he asked. 'If I'm to go in for a million, I take it you can entrust me with the outlines.'
“'Really, it was on my mind to do so,' I replied.
“'My scheme is this: I shall make an alliance with Mr. Kennedy.'
“'Stop, stop!' cried my father hastily. 'On the whole, I don't care to hear your scheme. You shall have the money; but I've decided that it will reflect more glory upon you should you bring things to an issue without advice from me. Therefore, you need tell me no more; positively, I will not hear you.'”
“It was my name made him leary,” observed Big Kennedy, with the gratified face of one who has been paid a compliment. “When you said 'Kennedy,' he just about figgered we were out to get a kit of tools an' pry a shutter off th' First National. It's th' mugwump notion of Tammany, d'ye see! You put him onto it some time, that now I'm Chief I've got center-bits an' jimmies skinned to death when it comes to makin' money.”
“I don't think it was your name,” observed young Morton. “He's beginning to learn, however, about my voting those three hundred wenches in overalls and jumpers, don't y' know, and it has taught him to distrust my methods as lacking that element of conservatism which he values so much. It was that which came uppermost in his memory, and it occurred to him that perhaps the less he knew about my enterprises the sounder he would sleep. Is it not remarkable, how fondly even an advanced man like my father will cling to the moss-grown and the obsolete?”
“That's no dream neither!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, in earnest coincidence with young Morton. “It's this old fogy business on th' parts of people who ought to be leadin' up th' dance for progress, that sends me to bed tired in th' middle of th' day!” And here Big Kennedy shook his head reproachfully at gray ones whose sluggishness had wounded him.
“My father drew his check,” continued young Morton. “He couldn't let it come to me, however, without a chiding. Wonderful, how the aged like to lord it over younger folk with rebukes for following in their footsteps—really!
“'You speak of bankruptcy,' said my father, sucking in his cheeks. 'Would it violate confidence should you tell me how you come to be in such a disgraceful predicament?' This last was asked in a spirit of sarcasm, don't y' know.