“Ready for what, sir,—game at chess?”
“No, boy, work, business; you are rapidly growing into a man. I want help badly and the time has arrived. I’ve come down to settle what we arranged for about my young partner.”
Had a shell fallen in the little drawing-room, no one could have looked more surprised.
Deering had kept his word.
In the course of the next morning a long and serious conversation ensued, which resulted evidently in Deering’s disappointment on the doctor’s declining to agree to the proposal.
“But, it is so quixotic of you, Lee,” cried Deering, angrily.
“Wrong,” replied the doctor, smiling in his old school-fellow’s face; “the quixotism is on your side in making so big a proposal on Vane’s behalf.”
“But you are standing in the boy’s light.”
“Not at all. I believe I am doing what is best for him. He is far too young to undertake so responsible a position.”
“Nonsense!”