Jack Galbraith sat quite still, for him, with the disgraced foot tucked under him. But Mar, without raising his eyes, was conscious as a woman might have been, of the frequent journey of the small hand across the eyes, and now and then the more efficacious aid of a sleeve employed to clear the watery vision.
Presently, “After I ’most dwownded ve childwen, I expect she wouldn’t let me wead my twavel book. What do you fink, Mr. Mar?”
The gentleman addressed laid down his pen, but still looking at it, “Well, I don’t know,” he said cautiously.
Whereupon Jack Galbraith gave way openly to tears.
“You’re not going to forget,” said the man, with no great show of sympathy, “you’re not going to forget that however much a boy’s father leaves him, America hasn’t got any use for an idle man.”
“It’s Mrs. Mar makes me sit here doin’ nuffin’,” the child indignantly defended himself.
“Oh, for the moment, yes. But when the time comes to choose what you’re going to do, Jack—if I’m not at hand to talk it over, think about civil engineering. It takes a man about, and on more intelligent terms than my profession—”
“Yes,” Jack threw in upon the ground swell of a heavy sob. “I shouldn’t like sittin’ countin’ money in a bank,” and while he caught his breath he looked about drearily, as if already he saw himself an imprisoned cashier.
“Sitting in a bank isn’t the profession I chose, either. I am—I was a surveyor,” said Nathaniel Mar.