"I understood you didn't think much of sis's choice."
"Well, of course, he wouldn't be much in Montana City, but he's all right in his place, and he seems to be healthy. What knocks me is how he ever got all them freckles. He never come by 'em honestly, I bet. He must 'a' got caught in an explosion of freckles sometime. But that ain't neither here nor there. He has the goods and Pish'll get 'em delivered. She's got something to show fur her dust. But what you got to show? Not a blamed thing but a lot of stubs in a check-book, and a little fat. Now I ain't makin' any kick. I got no right to; but I do hate to see you leadin' this life of idleness and dissipation when you might be makin' something of yourself. Your pa was quite a man. He left his mark out there in that Western country. Now you're here settled in the East among big people, with a barrel of money and fine chances to do something, and you're jest layin' down on the family name. You wouldn't think near so much of your pa if he'd laid down before his time; and your own children will always have to say 'Poor pa—he had a good heart, but he never could amount to anything more'n a threespot; he didn't have any stuff in him,' they'll be sayin'. Now, on the level, you don't want to go through life bein' just known as a good thing and easy money, do you?"
"Why, of course not, Uncle Peter; only I had to look around some at first,—for a year or so."
"Well, if you need to look any more, then your eyes ain't right. That's my say. I ain't askin' you to go West. I don't expect that!"
Percival brightened.
"But I am tryin' to nag you into doin' something here. People can say what they want to about you," he continued, stubbornly, as one who confesses the most arrant bigotry, "but I know you have got some brains, some ability—I really believe you got a whole lot—and you got the means to take your place right at the top. You can head 'em all in this country or any other. Now what you ought to do, you ought to take your place in the world of finance—put your mind on it night and day—swing out—get action—and set the ball to rolling. Your pa was a big man in the West, and there ain't any reason as I can see of why you can't be just as big a man in proportion here. People can talk all they want to about your bein' just a dub—I won't believe 'em. And there's London. You ain't been ambitious enough. Get a down-hill pull on New York, and then branch out. Be a man of affairs like your pa, and like that fellow Shepler. Let's be somebody. If Montana City was too small fur us, that's no reason why New York should be too big."
Percival had walked the floor in deep attention to the old man's words.
"You've got me right, Uncle Peter," he said at last. "And you're right about what I ought to do. I've often thought I'd go into some of these big operations here. But for one thing I was afraid of what you'd say. And then, I didn't know the game very well. But I see I ought to do something. You're dead right."
"And we need more money, too," urged the old man. "I was reading a piece the other day about the big fortunes in New York. Why, we ain't one, two, three, with the dinky little twelve or thirteen millions we could swing. You don't want to be a piker, do you? If you go in the game at all, play her open and high. Make 'em take the ceiling off. You can just as well get into the hundred million class as not, and I know it. They needn't talk to me—I know you have got some brains. If you was to go in now it would keep you straight and busy, and take you out of this pin-head class that only spends their pa's money."
"You're all right, Uncle Peter! I certainly did need you to come along right now and set me straight. You founded the fortune, pa trebled it, and now I'll get to work and roll it up like a big snowball."