“Well, I guess I've pretty thoroughly vindicated my judgement. I guess I HAVE! I said the shop'd be good for you, and it was. I said it wouldn't hurt you, and it hasn't. It's been just exactly what I said it would be. Ain't that so?”
“Looks like it!” Bibbs agreed, gaily.
“Well, I'd like to know any place I been wrong, first and last! Instead o' hurting you, it's been the makin' of you—physically. You're a good inch taller'n what I am, and you'd be a bigger man than what I am if you'd get some flesh on your bones; and you ARE gettin' a little. Physically, it's started you out to be the huskiest one o' the whole family. Now, then, mentally—that's different. I don't say it unkindly, Bibbs, but you got to do something for yourself mentally, just like what's begun physically. And I'm goin' to help you.”
Sheridan decided to sit down again. He brought his chair close to his son's, and, leaning over, tapped Bibbs's knee confidentially. “I got plans for you, Bibbs,” he said.
Bibbs instantly looked thoroughly alarmed. He drew back. “I—I'm all right now, father.”
“Listen.” Sheridan settled himself in his chair, and spoke in the tone of a reasonable man reasoning. “Listen here, Bibbs. I had another blow to-day, and it was a hard one and right in the face, though I HAVE been expectin' it some little time back. Well, it's got to be met. Now I'll be frank with you. As I said a minute ago, mentally I couldn't ever called you exactly strong. You been a little weak both ways, most of your life. Not but what I think you GOT a mentality, if you'd learn to use it. You got will-power, I'll say that for you. I never knew boy or man that could be stubborner—never one in my life! Now, then, you've showed you could learn to run that machine best of any man in the shop, in no time at all. That looks to me like you could learn to do other things. I don't deny but what it's an encouragin' sign. I don't deny that, at all. Well, that helps me to think the case ain't so hopeless as it looks. You're all I got to meet this blow with, but maybe you ain't as poor material as I thought. Your tellin' me about comin' within seven strips of the shop's record to-day looks to me like encouragin' information brought in at just about the right time. Now, then, I'm goin' to give you a raise. I wanted to send you straight on up through the shops—a year or two, maybe—but I can't do it. I lost Jim, and now I've lost Roscoe. He's quit. He's laid down on me. If he ever comes back at all, he'll be a long time pickin' up the strings, and, anyway, he ain't the man I thought he was. I can't count on him. I got to have SOMEBODY I KNOW I can count on. And I'm down to this: you're my last chance. Bibbs, I got to learn you to use what brains you got and see if we can't develop 'em a little. Who knows? And I'm goin' to put my time in on it. I'm goin' to take you right down-town with ME, and I won't be hard on you if you're a little slow at first. And I'm goin' to do the big thing for you. I'm goin' to make you feel you got to do the big thing for me, in return. I've vindicated my policy with you about the shop, and now I'm goin' to turn right around and swing you 'way over ahead of where the other boys started, and I'm goin' to make an appeal to your ambition that'll make you dizzy!” He tapped his son on the knee again. “Bibbs, I'm goin' to start you off this way: I'm goin' to make you a director in the Pump Works Company; I'm goin' to make you vice-president of the Realty Company and a vice-president of the Trust Company!”
Bibbs jumped to his feet, blanched. “Oh no!” he cried.
Sheridan took his dismay to be the excitement of sudden joy. “Yes, sir! And there's some pretty fat little salaries goes with those vice-presidencies, and a pinch o' stock in the Pump Company with the directorship. You thought I was pretty mean about the shop—oh, I know you did!—but you see the old man can play it both ways. And so right now, the minute you've begun to make good the way I wanted you to, I deal from the new deck. And I'll keep on handin' it out bigger and bigger every time you show me you're big enough to play the hand I deal you. I'm startin' you with a pretty big one, my boy!”
“But I don't—I don't—I don't want it!” Bibbs stammered.
“What'd you say?” Sheridan thought he had not heard aright.