"Oh, but it won't."
"Ask anyone. Ask your own father. That's my point. If we do pitch in your father will be one of the big men of the two continents. You're his only son. You'll have to play up to him."
Tom watched the hardened, dissipated young face contract with a queer kind of gravity. The teeth gritted, the lips grew set. It gave him the chance to go on.
"There aren't a half dozen men in the country who'd be able to swing what your father'll be swinging. Listen! I know something about banking. Been studying it for years. When it comes to war the banker has to chalk-line every foot of the lot. They can't do anything without him. They can't have an army or a navy or any international teamwork. You'll see. The minute war is declared, before war is declared, the President'll be sending for your father to talk over ways and means. Now then, are you to put a spoke in the country's wheel? You can. You're doing it. The more you worry him the less good he'll be. Get chucked out of college, as you would have been in a day or two, if I hadn't stepped in, and begged to have you put in my charge—"
Once more Tad revolted. "Put in your charge! The devil I'll be put in your charge!"
"All right! It's the one condition on which you stay at Harvard. Jump your bail, and you'll see your father pay for it. He'll have his big international job, and he won't be able to swing it because he'll be thinking of you. You'll see the whole country pay for it. I daresay we shan't know where we pay and how we pay; but we'll be paying. Say, is it worth your while? What do you gain by being the rotten spot in the beam that may bring the whole shack about our ears? Everybody knows that your father has lost one son. Can't you try to give him another of whom he won't have to be ashamed?"
Tad stood sulkily, his hands in his trousers' pockets, as he tipped on his toes and reflected. Since he made no answer, Tom went on with his appeal.
"And that's not the only thing. There's yourself. You're not a bad sort. You've got the makings of a decent chap, even if you aren't one. You could be one easily enough. All you've got to do is to drop some of your fool acquaintances, cut out drinking, cut out women, and make a show of doing what you've been sent to Harvard to do, even if it's only a show. You won't have to keep it up for more than a few weeks."
The furrow in the forehead when the eyebrows were lifted was also a mark of dissipation. "More than a few weeks? Why not?"
Tom pounded with emphasis. "Because, I tell you, we'll be in the war. You'll be in the war. We fellows of the class of 1919 are not going to walk up on Commencement Day and take our degrees. We'll get them before that. We'll get them in batteries and trenches and graves. I heard a girl say, in speaking of you a day or two ago, that she hoped, when the time came for that, you'd be fit. She said she liked the word—fit for the job that'd be given you. You couldn't be fit if you went on—"