Frank Merriwell's Son; Or, A Chip Off the Old Block

by Burt L. Standish

"Begorra, to see yez is a soight for sore eyes and to hear yez is music to deaf ears!" chuckled Barney Mulloy. "You're the same old rabid champeen av the downtrodden masses. You're still pratin' away about the coming of the great earthquake."

"That's right, by gum!" grinned Gallup. "But, say, why didn't yeou warn the people of Frisco before they gut shook up?"

"When I speak of the great coming earthquake," said Carker, "you know I'm talking figuratively. But you haven't answered my question. Where did you chaps come from?"

"Right up from old Mexico," replied Ephraim. "We've been down there, me and Barney, a-helpin' put through the new Central Sonora Railroad. The old road's finished, and we're takin' a vacation now, with a big bank account to our credit and plenty of the long green in our pants pockets."

"Tainted money! tainted money!" exclaimed Greg dramatically. "You've been laboring for a heartless corporation. These great railroad companies have made their wealth by robbing the downtrodden masses."

"Ye don't say!" grinned Barney. "The money we have made may be tainted, but the only taint I've discovered about it is 'tain't enough."

"Oh, you're still frivolous and thoughtless, both of you," asserted Greg, with a shake of his bushy head. "You can't seem to realize the fact that in these degenerate days there are no longer opportunities for men to rise from the lower ranks to positions of competence, independence, and power. The great corporations and trusts are killing competition and holding the masses down. A boy born in the lower walks no longer has a chance to get out of that strata of existence."

"It's rot ye still talk, me fri'nd," declared Barney. "Oi think th' chances are as good as they iver were, and a lot betther, av anything."

"If yeou're right," put in Ephraim, "'tain't the great corporations and trusts alone that are to blame. It's the labor organizations that say every workingman, no matter whether he's capable of great things or is just an ordinary dub, shall take a sartain scale of wages. That kills ambition and keeps young fellers of ability and genius from risin'. Yes, siree, it sartinly does."

"Oh, your mind is too narrow to grasp all the phases of this great question," asserted the young socialist, with a sweep of his hand. "I wish you'd prove to me that young men still have a chance to rise in these days. Show me an example."