William Jordan, Junior

by J. C. Snaith

As he framed this sinister question he peered into his father’s eyes with a look of entreaty, as though he besought him not to answer in the manner that he feared to be inevitable.

“You have spoken truly, Achilles,” said his father gently.

The words of his father seemed to embody a sentence of death. His father perceived in what manner he was stricken.

“You see, beloved one,” he said, holding the slight frame against his bosom, “nothing whatever can be obtained in this world which for a term we are doomed to inhabit, except by the medium of pieces of silver. The food that sustains us, the clothes that shield us, the roof that defends us, can only be purchased by pieces of silver. Even these heroes, whom you and I consider the first among created things, had to collect many pieces of silver before they could acquire the materials, and the leisure to perform their most signal acts.”

“And, my father,” said the boy, “had they not always to have their little rooms in which to read the ancient authors and to seek their knowledge?” He shuddered with a kind of passion. “Yes, indeed, I must go out into the streets of the great city and find some pieces of silver,” he said.

X

The boy was visited by little sleep that night and for many nights to follow. The necessity of adventuring forth again into those streets, the recollection of which ever haunted him like a diabolical vision, was at first more than he could endure. Many were the attempts he made to fare forth yet again, but on every occasion he would turn back all stricken by distress after essaying less than a hundred yards. Yet at each failure the stern need of conquering this deplorable frailty would address him like a passion; and sometimes with a sense of dire humiliation he would be moved to take counsel of his father.

“How, my father, can I make myself obey myself?” was a question he asked many times.

It was not until his father had pondered deeply on this subject that he vouchsafed a reply. And then at last he said, “I fear, beloved, that in your present phase there is only one answer I can give to your question. I fear it will be necessary for you to obtain a little knowledge in the practical sciences before the power will be furnished for you to move out in courage and security into the streets of the great city. Beloved, we will devote a whole year to this study, and we will conduct it together.”

During that evening, to the boy’s astonishment, his father went out into the street and brought back a newspaper, an article the boy had never seen in his hand before.