"Live? What do you mean?" said Josiah. "Why, they're perfectly happy. What put such nonsense in your head?"
"Oh, bother!" exclaimed Hugo. "Certainly they're happy. Amy'd be a fool not to be happy with as decent a chap as he is. I mean, how do they get along about money?"
"He's got a good business," said Fosdick. "You know it as well as I do."
"He used to have," replied Hugo. "But he's too busy with Amy to be doing much else. He's always standing on her dress. And he has no partner."
"I don't know anything about it," said Fosdick. "If Amy needed money, she'd come to me." Fosdick recalled that he had been paying even heavier bills for her since she was married; but he had no mind to speak of it to Hugo, as he did not wish Hugo to misunderstand. "You attend to your own affairs, boy," he continued. "Those two are all right." And he beamed benevolently. He delighted in Amy's happiness, felt that he was entirely responsible for it.
But Hugo was not to be put off. "Believe me, father, Alois is down to bed-rock. He can't speak to Amy about it, or to you. He's a gentleman. It's up to you to do something for him."
"I guess looking after Amy does keep his time pretty well filled up," chuckled the old man, much amused. "I'll fix him a place in the O.A.D.—something that'll give him a good income and not take his mind entirely off his job."
"Why not get Armstrong to make him supervising architect? A big public institution like that ought to pay more attention to cultivating the artistic side. He could think out and carry out some general plan that'd harmonize to high standards all the buildings, especially the dwelling and apartment houses they own in the provinces." Hugo spoke of the O.A.D. as "they" nowadays, though he still thought of it as "we."
"That's a good idea, Hugo, as good as any other. I'll see Armstrong to-day. I oughtn't to have neglected putting Alois on the pay rolls. I'll give him something in the railway, too. We'll fix him up handsomely. He's a fine young fellow, and he has made Amy happy. You don't appreciate that, you young scoundrel, as we of the older generation do." And Hugo had to listen patiently to a discourse on decaying virtue and honor and family life; for, like all decaying men, Fosdick mistook internal symptoms for an exterior and universal phenomenon, just as a man who is going blind cries, "The light is getting dim!"
Fosdick did not forget. Now that his attention was upon the matter, he reproached himself severely for his oversight. "I've been taking care of scores of people, and neglecting my own. But I'll make up for it." He ordered the president of the railway to put Alois on the pay rolls at once with a salary of twelve thousand a year. "You need somebody to supervise the stations. Everybody's going in for art, nowadays, and we want the best. Mail him his first check to-day, with the notice of his appointment."