Such food Jim had not tasted before, but he ate sparingly. He was too happy to eat, for little Jim, although extremely fond of pudding, was no glutton. There he sat with his auburn hair on end, his blue eyes bright and shining, smiles and grave looks chasing themselves over his face till the General was prouder of him than ever.
"I'm not sure but he's the O'Callaghan," he told his wife, when the children had gone back to the parlor for a final game before the party should break up. "But it is that mother of his and his older brothers who have brought him on."
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Pat and Mike and Andy washed the dishes and put things to rights with three hearts full of pride in little Jim.
"To think the mother was afraid he would turn out an agitator!" said Pat.
"This night settles that," responded Mike. "He's more likely to turn out a society man. He'll be a credit to us all."
At last the guests were gone. And then for the first time little Jim's eyes examined with keen scrutiny the pretty rooms, while the General and Mrs. Brady kept silence, content to observe him with affectionate interest. Finally the boy came back from things to people, and he came with a sigh.
"Have you enjoyed yourself?" asked the General, smiling.
"Yes, sir. I never had such a toime before in my loife. 'Tis parties as are the thing." He paused and then asked, "How will I be goin' at it to get me a house like this?"
And then the General looked astonished. He had not yet fully measured little Jim's ambition that stopped at nothing. Hitherto it had been that pernicious ambition that desires, and at the same time, lazily refuses to put forth the exertion necessary to attain, or it had been that other scarcely less reprehensible ambition that exerts itself simply to outshine others, and Mrs. O'Callaghan had had good cause to be anxious about Jim. Tonight it was the right sort of ambition, backed by a remarkably strong will and boundless energy. He looked up at the General with confidence and waited to be told just how he could get such a house for himself.
The General gazed down into the clear, unashamed depths of little Jim's blue eyes. The attitude of the O'Callaghan's toward him always touched him. His money had nothing to do with it, nor had his superior social position. It was he himself that the O'Callaghans respected, admired, loved and venerated, and this without in the least abating their own self-respect and independence. It was like being the head of a clan, the General told himself, and he liked it. So now he answered with his hand on little Jim's shoulder, "Work, my boy, and study, work and study."