“I declare,” I put in, “I thought you were his friend!”
“So I am,” the young fellow returned. “Friend, admirer, and doer-in-ordinary to Hector J. Ransom, that's my quality. I've done errands and odd jobs for him all my life. Most people who meet him do; though it might be hard to say why. I haven't hitched my wagon to a star; nobody'll get to do that, because this star isn't going to take anything to the zenith but itself.”
“Going to the zenith, is he?”
“Surely.”
“You mean,” said I, “that he's going to make a fine lawyer?”
“Oh, no, I think not. He might have been called one in the last generation, but, as I understand it, nowadays a lawyer has to work out business propositions more than oratory.”
“And you think Hector has only his oratory?”
“I think that's his vehicle; it's his racing sulky and he'll drive it pretty hard. We're good friends, but if you want me to be frank, I should say that he'd drive on over my dead body if it lay in the road to where he was going.” Lane rolled over in the grass with a little chuckle. “Of course,” he went on, “I talk about him this way because I know what you've done for him and I'd like to help you to be sure that he's going to be a success. He'll do you credit!”
“What are you going to do, yourself, Joe?” I asked.
“Me?” He sat up, looking surprised. “Why, didn't you know? I didn't get my degree. They threw me out at the eleventh hour for getting too publicly tight—celebrating Hector's winning the works of Lord Byron, the prize in the senior debate! I'll never be a credit to anybody; and as for what I'm going to do—go back to Greenville and loaf in Tim's pool-room, I suppose, and watch Hector's balloon.”