looked at his father with a broad grin, and opened the door.
Mr. Tarbox had come at the right moment. There was a good hour and a half of the afternoon still left, and he and Claude took a walk together. Beyond a stile and a frail bridge that spanned a gully at one end of the town, a noble avenue of oaks leads toward Vermilion River. On one side of this avenue the town has since begun to spread, but at that time there were only wide fields on the right hand and on the left. At the farther end a turn almost at right angles to the left takes you through a great gate and across the railway, then along a ruined hedge of roses, and presently into the oak-grove of the old ex-governor’s homestead. This was their walk.
By the time they reached the stile, Claude had learned that his friend was at the head of his line, and yet had determined to abandon that line for another
“Far up the height—
Excelsior!”
Also that his friend had liked him, had watched him, would need him, and was willing then and there to assure him a modest salary, whose amount he specified, simply to do whatever he might call upon him to do in his (Claude’s) “line.”
They were walking slowly, and now and then slower still. As they entered the avenue of oaks, Claude declined the offer. Then they went very slowly indeed. Claude learned that Mr. Tarbox, by some chance not explained, had been in company with his friend the engineer; that the engineer had said, “Tarbox, you’re a born contractor,” and that Claude and he would make a “strong team;” that Mr. Tarbox’s favorite study was human nature; that he knew talent when he saw it; had studied Claude; had fully expected him to decline to be his employee, and liked him the better for so doing.
“That was just a kind of test vote; see?”
Then Mr. Tarbox offered Claude a partnership; not an equal one, but withal a fair interest.
“We’ve got to commence small and branch out gradually; see?” And Claude saw.
“Now, you wonder why I don’t go in alone. Well, I’ll tell you; and when I tell you, I’ll astonish you. I lack education! Now, Claude, I’m taking you into my confidence. You’ve done nothing but go to school and study for about six years. I had a different kind of father from yours; I never got one solid year’s schooling, all told, in my life. I’ve picked up cords of information, but an ounce of education’s worth a ton of information. Don’t you believe that? eh? it is so! I say it, and I’m the author of the A. of U. I. I like to call it that, because it brings you and I so near together; see?” The speaker smiled, was still, and resumed: