His father leaned forward, regarding him with a keen, kindly gaze. “I'm told the garage has gone up,” he commenced.
“Sam took his car away; it was Alfred's infernal tinkering; he can't leave a machine alone.”
“Did you close affairs satisfactorily, stop solvent?”
“There's a little debt of about six dollars.”
The other sought his wallet, and, removing a rubber band, counted six dollars into Anthony's hand. “Meet that in the morning.” He leaned hack, tapping the wallet with deliberate fingers. “I suppose you have no plan for the immediate future,” he observed.
“Nothing right now.”
“I have one for you, though, as 'right now' as this week.”
Anthony listened respectfully, his thoughts still dwelling upon the beauty of the dusk without, of life. “You have tried a number of things in the past few years without success. I have started you in a small way again and again, only to observe the familiar course of a failure inevitable from your shiftless habits. You are not a bad boy, but you have no ability to concentrate, like a stream spread all over the meadow—you have no course. You're a loiterer.”
“Yes, sir,” said Anthony, from the midst of his abstraction.
“You are too old for that now, either it must stop at once, or you will become definitely worthless. I am going to make a determined effort—I am going to send you to California, your brother-in-law writes that he can give you something.”