A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK
By Juliet Wilbur Tompkins
The two were amazingly, even absurdly alike, as they faced each other across the library table. The very scowl that lay heavy on the girl’s forehead was an obvious inheritance from the parental scowl opposite.
“I’m a self-made man, Paula—plain Western goods. It’s too late to teach me fancy values. I don’t go a hang on anything but facts. Some folks can put a paper frill around a mutton chop and call it lamb, but that ain’t my way. I see things as they are.”
“Well, I’m the daughter of a self-made man, and of a New England school-teacher too; if you can beat that combination for seeing things, as they are—”
“It’s your notion that you see this young feller as he is?”
“I do. And he has got just the things that you and I haven’t and need.”
“He has, eh? You might mention one or two.”
“Ancestry.”
“Oh, pshaw!”