“Yes,” he conceded; “my father and sister live here. And I have lived here all my life except for the four years in college, and the past two years in Florida.”
“College—to be sure,” the inquisitor agreed half absently. “What course, if I may ask?”
“Engineering.”
At this the bearded man exhibited a tiny fob charm made in the shape of a simple trestle bent and extended a hand individualized by the spatulate thumb and square-ended fingers of the artist-artisan.
“Shake!” he exclaimed, with something more than Middle-Western informality. “I happen to be one of the same breed. Now I am quite certain you won’t die here in—Middletown?—is that the name?—always making an exception in favor of the untoward accident, of course.”
“Middleboro,” David corrected. Then to the repetition of the prophecy: “You are probably right. I found that I had to leave home to get my first job. I have been on Government work in Florida—rivers and harbors.”
“Government work? A deep grave and a safe one. Would you mind telling me just why you chose to bury yourself in it?”
Vallory’s smile was still good-natured. For so young a man he was singularly free from the false dignity which so often is made to pass for the real.
“I don’t mind in the least. I did what most college men do; took the first reasonably decent thing that offered. It wasn’t at all what I wanted, but my own particular line was rather dull two years ago. I majored in railroad building.”
“Railroad building, eh? That’s my trade, too,” said the other. Then, with an overlooking glance that was too frankly a renewal of the appraisive summing-up to be mistaken for anything else: “You’ll go far, my young friend—if you’re not too good.”