“Well, perhaps I didn't have any call to accuse you of that. I don't know as you ever did go back on anything you said, exactly, though the Lord knows you've laid down on me enough. You certainly have!” Sheridan was baffled. This was not what he wished to say, but his words were unmanageable; he found himself unable to control them, and his querulous abuse went on in spite of him. “I can't say I expect much of you—not from the way you always been, up to now—unless you turn over a new leaf, and I don't see any encouragement to think you're goin' to do THAT! If you go down there and show a spark o' real GIT-up, I reckon the whole office'll fall in a faint. But if you're ever goin' to show any, you better begin right at the beginning and begin to show it to-morrow.”
“Yes—I'll try.”
“You better, if it's in you!” Sheridan was sheerly nonplussed. He had always been able to say whatever he wished to say, but his tongue seemed bewitched. He had come to tell Bibbs about Mary's letter, and to his own angry astonishment he found it impossible to do anything except to scold like a drudge-driver. “You better come down there with your mind made up to hustle harder than the hardest workin'-man that's under you, or you'll not get on very good with me, I tell you! The way to get ahead—and you better set it down in your books—the way to get ahead is to do ten times the work of the hardest worker that works FOR you. But you don't know what work is, yet. All you've ever done was just stand around and feed a machine a child could handle, and then come home and take a bath and go callin'. I tell you you're up against a mighty different proposition now, and if you're worth your salt—and you never showed any signs of it yet—not any signs that stuck out enough to bang somebody on the head and make 'em sit up and take notice—well, I want to say, right here and now—and you better listen, because I want to say just what I DO say. I say—”
He meandered to a full stop. His mouth hung open, and his mind was a hopeless blank.
Bibbs looked up patiently—an old, old look. “Yes, father; I'm listening.”
“That's all,” said Sheridan, frowning heavily. “That's all I came to say, and you better see't you remember it!”
He shook his head warningly, and went out, closing the door behind him with a crash. However, no sound of footsteps indicated his departure. He stopped just outside the door, and stood there a minute or more. Then abruptly he turned the knob and exhibited to his son a forehead liberally covered with perspiration.
“Look here,” he said, crossly. “That girl over yonder wrote Jim a letter—”
“I know,” said Bibbs. “She told me.”
“Well, I thought you needn't feel so much upset about it—” The door closed on his voice as he withdrew, but the conclusion of the sentence was nevertheless audible—“if you knew she wouldn't have Jim, either.”