Welkie looked his interrogation.
"Surely, Welkie. A boy of brains he'll be. I don't have to look at a man or a boy twice. Brains and will power. You could make a great career for him, Welkie—a great engineer, say, if he was started right. But, of course, you'll be in a position by and by to see that he gets the start."
"Started right? What does he want when he has health and brains and a heart?"
"All fine, but he'll need more than that these days."
"Are these days so different?"
"Different, man! Why, the older a country is, the more civilized it is, the more education means, the more social position counts, the more money counts."
"How much more?"
"A heap more. Listen. Your father on twenty-five hundred a year, say, could put his children through college, couldn't he? On twenty-five hundred a year to-day a man with a family has to battle to keep out of the tenement districts. A dozen years from now, if you're getting no more money than you're getting now, you'll be wondering if you won't have to take that boy out of school and put him to work. Isn't that so?"
Welkie made no answer.
"All right. But before I go any farther, let me say that I want you, Mr. Welkie, for our new job."