In the Subway on his way to Colonel Willetts's office Tommy's mood left him. The New York he saw about him, with its alien faces—all kinds of faces and all alien—was not the place for him to work in. And his own particular New York was very small—a city with a score of inhabitants. His real life could never merge with the life of the strange and dislikable New York he saw in the streets and in the shops and in the office buildings. He could not work here, where every man was concerned with himself and no one else, and so plainly showed it in his face. New York could never be a city of brothers, of men who wished both to be helped and to help. He would go back to Dayton, of course. And he must take back checks for a total of two hundred thousand dollars. He must! And he would!
He paused a moment in the hallway of the sixth floor of the Willetts Building, one of Wall Street's earliest skyscrapers, and considered a moment how he should proceed. He was about to grasp the knob of the door of Colonel Willetts's office when the door opened and Mr. Leigh came out.
“Father!” cried Tommy. His plans, not very elaborate, were knocked into a cocked hat. Misery, indefinite but poignant, filled him.
“Thomas!” gasped Mr. Leigh. He was more startled than his son. To Tommy his father's look was one of guilt. And a guilty look on that face was like turning the calcium-light on the secret.
“I—I had to see Colonel Willetts on bank business,” stammered Mr. Leigh. He glanced at Tommy uncomfortably and quickly looked away. Then he said, apologetically, almost pleadingly: “I thought it expedient, while I was there, to speak about your errand to New York. I—I gave him my opinion of the—investment.”
“But I asked you—I hoped you would not speak about it,” said Tommy, unhappy rather than annoyed. And then, with the illogicality of sorrow, Tommy thought that his father knew so little about the company that any advice he might give about the investment could not be strictly honest advice.
“Colonel Willetts is a director of the Marshall National, and our bank has close relations with it. I have done no harm to you, Thomas.” Tommy was frowning because of his own disinclination to recognize ungrudgingly that his father had been prompted by loyalty and love. Old people were like that. And now his father was actually and visibly afraid of incurring the displeasure of the son for whom he had done so much—too much! And that son actually was thinking of his own grievances! Moreover, the damage, if any, was done.
“You meant for the best, dad!” said Tommy, with a smile, and held out his hand. “I expect you will have to wait till I grow up before I get some sense.”
His father's hand clutched his so tightly that Tommy's resentment turned into remorse.
“I'll make the points you told me last night, dad. They are mighty good points!” And he meant it.