“It’s a big business,” went on the father with unexpected calmness. “It’s a business to be proud of. It’s a business that a young man would take over with forty years already put into it.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Barnes, “isn’t that enough of good red years to feed into cook-stoves?”
Barnes, Sr., rose to his feet. He paced the room once or twice. He looked like a man fighting off bankruptcy. Barnes pitied him—pitied him from the bottom of his heart. But that was no reason why he should help him to his doom.
“God!” exclaimed the father, taking a stand directly in front of the boy, “I wonder how you ever happened to be a son of mine!”
“I am a son of yours,” answered Barnes, coolly, “but I am no son of the Acme’s. Sit down, father. Don’t tear yourself to pieces. Let me make a proposition of my own.”
He placed his hands upon his father’s shoulders.
“Dad,” he said soberly, “I want you to take up Art.”
Barnes, Sr., met his son’s eyes a moment in astonished stupefication. Then he sank weakly into his chair. Which left Barnes standing with the appearance of occupying the superior position.
“Dad,” he ran on, “I’m serious. This damned business of the Acme must be stopped. You’ve sat in your office down there until you’re baked as dry as though you had been sitting in one of your own ovens. It’s burning the soul out of you. I’ve seen these last few days just how small at best a cook-stove is.”
The older man made no reply, but his lips began to twitch. Barnes seated himself before those twitching lips and resumed.