"Yes," Phil agreed; "but it's a pity to touch what you've saved." He turned to me. "You see, Hunt, we're talking over all the prospects. Aren't we, Jimmy?"
"Yes, sir," answered Jimmy. "Prof. Farmer thinks," he added, "that I may be making a mistake to try it here; he thinks it may be a waste of time. I'm kind of up in the air about it, myself."
"Jimmy's rather a special case," struck in Phil, dropping into a Morris chair and thrusting his legs out. "He's twenty-two now; and he's already made remarkably good as an expert mechanic. He left his home here over six years ago, worked his way to Detroit, applied for a job and got it. Now there's probably no one in New Haven who knows more than this young man about gas engines, steel alloys, shop organization, and all that. The little job that detained him was the working out of some minor but important economy in the manufacture of automobiles. He suggested it by letter to the president of the company himself, readily obtained several interviews with his chief, and was given a chance to try it out.
"It has proved its practical worth already, though you and I are far too ignorant to understand it. As a result, the president of the company offered him a much higher position at an excellent salary. It's open to him still, if he chooses to go back for it. But Jimmy has decided to turn it down for a college education. And I'm wondering, Hunt, whether Yale has anything to give him that will justify such a sacrifice—anything that he couldn't obtain for himself, at much less expense, without three years waste of time and opportunity. How does it strike you, old man? What would you say, offhand, without weighing the matter?"
What I wanted to say was, "Damn it all! I'm not here at this time of night to interest myself in the elementary problems of Jimmy Kane!" In fact, I did say it to myself, with considerable energy—only to stop at the name, to stare at the boy before me, and to exclaim in a swift flash of connection, "Great Scott! Are you Susan's Jimmy?"
"'Susan's Jimmy'!" snorted Phil, with a peculiar grin. "Of course he's Susan's Jimmy! I wondered how long it would take you!"
As for Susan's Jimmy, his expression was one of desolated amazement. Either his host and his host's friend, or he himself—had gone suddenly mad! The drop of his jaw was parentheses about a question mark. His blue eyes piteously stared.
"I guess I'm not on, sir," he mumbled to Phil, blushing hotly.
He was really a most attractive youth, considering his origins. I eyed him now shamelessly, and was forced to wonder that the wrong end of Birch Street should have produced not only Susan—who would have proved the phœnix of any environment—but this pleasant-faced, confidence-inspiring boy, whose expression so oddly mingled simplicity, energy, stubborn self-respect, and the cheerfulness of good health, an unspoiled will, and a hopeful heart. He seemed at once too mature for his years and too naïve; concentration had already modelled his forehead, but there was innocence in his eyes. Innocence—I can only call it that. His eyes looked out at the world with the happiest candor; and I found myself predicting of him what I had never yet predicted of mortal woman or man: "He's capable of anything—but sophistication; he'll get on, he'll arrive somewhere—but he will never change."
Phil, meanwhile, had eased his embarrassment with a friendly laugh. "It's all right, Jimmy; we're not the lunatics we sound. Don't you remember Bob Blake's kid on Birch Street?"