“That’s what I do like so in you, Vane,” he cried.
“What?”
“You can do all sorts of things so well, and work so hard. Why you beat the busy bee all to bits, and are worth hives of them.”
“Why?” said Vane, laughing.
“You never go about making a great buzz over your work, as much as to say: ‘Hi! all of you look here and see what a busy bee I am,’ and better still, old chap, you never sting.”
“Ever hear anything of Mr Deering now, uncle?” said Vane, one morning, as he stood in his workshop, smiling over some of his models and schemes, the inventor being brought to his mind by the remark he had made when he was there, about even the attempts being educational.
“No, boy; nothing now, for some time; I only know that he has been very successful over his ventures; has large works, and is prospering mightily, but, like the rest of the world, he forgets those by whose help he has risen.”
“Oh, I don’t think he is that sort of man, uncle. Of course, he is horribly busy.”
“A man ought not to be too busy to recollect those who held the ladder for him to climb, Vane,” said the doctor, warmly. “You saved him when he was in the lowest of low water.”
“Oh, nonsense, uncle, I only saw what a muddle his work-people had made, just as they did with our greenhouse, and besides, don’t you remember it was settled that I was to carve—didn’t we call it—my own way.”