"And a good thing, too," Buddy said. "Granddad, your ideas of bringing up Elizabeth are a good deal like my own—a firm, strong hand applied wherever necessary."
"And last but not least—Mother," said Elizabeth, pausing in the midst of a grimace at her brother. "I never knew you to be the last one at the breakfast table in my life before, Mother."
"I'm glad," Mrs. Swift said, as she took her place between her children, "and oh, John and I have our napkin rings! I was going to bear it with resignation if we didn't, but I am so glad to see them again. We had them on our honeymoon, you know."
"Elizabeth had one for a while, but she didn't seem to admire it, not what you might call beyond reason," Grandfather said.
"Oh, dear!" said Elizabeth, "the instances keep piling up of the way he has seen right through me from the first minute of my coming, but now I'm beginning to see through him," she added, triumphantly.
"When anybody makes up their mind they are beginning to see through Father, there is generally breakers ahead for them," Grandmother said, thoughtfully.
"It's from Father that I get whatever business acumen I have," John Swift said; "let the other fellow think he is getting away with everything, and then when he has given himself entirely away, never let up on him."
"Yes, that's my principle," Grandfather said, complacently.
"I'm going into Father's office, did you know it?" Buddy said. "Until day before yesterday I might just as well have thought of getting a job with J. P. Morgan, and then suddenly this opening came, and my old boss recommended me for it."
"We lost a good man suddenly," John Swift explained, "and yesterday morning old Howard came in to me and asked me what I knew of a youngster named John Smith that used to be with the Urner Company. I was pretty sure he had got the name wrong, so I told him I'd call up the Urner office and find out if he was the one I thought he was. In the afternoon, just before I left, Howard asked me if I found out anything about the boy, and if I knew anything to his advantage or disadvantage. 'I do,' I said, 'both. He's my son.' 'We'll take him in,' Howard said, 'I guess you know how to handle him by this time.'"