"Yes," replied the other, "Travers. But don't speak his name as though it stung you. I was his father's clerk before I was yours."
"You know what I have already done for him," moodily rejoined the merchant.
"Yes, yes—I know it was kind, very kind of you—you helped him once; but he was unsuccessful. He is young—pray, pray, spare him some assistance. You won't miss it—indeed you won't," pleaded the clerk.
"Sterling, you are a fool," Granite replied, sternly. "Every dollar lent or lost is a backward step that must be crawled up to again by inches. But I am inclined to liberality to-day. What amount do you think will satisfy this spendthrift?"
"Well, since your kindness emboldens me to speak—it's no use patching up a worn coat, so even let him have a new one—give him another chance—a few hundred dollars, more or less, can't injure you, and may be his salvation. About five thousand dollars will suffice."
"Five thousand dollars! are you mad, Sterling?" cried the merchant, starting to his feet in a paroxysm of anger.
"Your son will have his half a million to begin with," quietly suggested Sterling.
"He will, he will!" cried the other, with a strange, proud light in his eye, for upon that son all his earthly hopes, and haply those beyond the earth, were centered. "Wealth is power, and he will have sufficient; he can lift his head amongst the best and proudest; he can wag his tongue amongst the highest in the land—eh, my old friend?"
"That can he, indeed, sir, and be ashamed of neither head nor tongue, for he's a noble youth," replied the clerk.
"Here, take this check, Sterling. I'll do as you wish this time; but mind it is the last. I have no right to injure, even in the remotest degree, my son's interests, of which I am simply the guardian. You can give it to—to—him, and with this positive assurance."