The first week of September slipped into the second. The night of the fourteenth, John Moore said at the supper table, "I bought the old Preble place, to-day. Traded in this place for it, so we'll have that free and clear out of the wreck."
"What do you mean?" faltered Mrs. Moore.
"What I say," he snapped. "The Russian contract has been canceled. Money never was so tight in thirty years as it is now. Wolf says he thinks there's a panic coming, and so does the bank. I can't borrow a cent more. I'm through with my fling, Alice, and I'm going back to a farm."
Roger choked a little on his tea. His mother said, unsteadily, "John dear, if going back to the farm brings you back to me, I shall thank God for the strike."
Roger's father scowled at his wife for a moment, then suddenly something, perhaps the gentleness of her voice and the sweetness of her eyes, caused him to push his chair back and going around to her side to kneel with his head against her shoulder.
Roger slipped out of the room, blowing his nose. He went into the back yard and sat scowling at the swimming pool until he heard the front door click on his father, then he went to bed.
The following day when Roger went into the office, his father's coat was hanging on the accustomed hook, but his father was not there. Vaguely alarmed, Roger started a search through the factory. His alarm proved unfounded, for he discovered his father in the little building that had been the original factory. He looked up when Roger came in.
"Look, Rog," he said. "I'd like to take this old machine up to the farm with us. We could store it somewhere. It's the first machine—the one I started business with."
Roger nodded but could not speak. Moore looked around the room.
"Well, I've had a good run for my hard work," he said, bitterly. "An old man at fifty and a worn out farm to spend my old age on."