"You've worked—you've worked—at what?"
"Well, you see, mother, if I could have knocked out a home run, say a job as a railroad president, when I stepped up to the plate in the first inning, I suppose I wouldn't have backed away from the chance. But I wanted to find my real value, so I wore cheap clothes and kept clear of my friends. 'What could I do?' every one asked me. You know my answer. And their answer! I thought only sub-way guards could say, 'Step lively,' like that. Lordy, how I tramped! But finally I met a kind gentleman who gave me a chance."
"A gentleman?"
"About the size of your piano—only he had a red mustache and a red shirt and I should say his complexion needed re-decorating. Irish—foreman on a water-main trench."
"And you—you took it?"
"Took it? I grabbed it!"
"J—a—c—k D—e P—e—y—s—t—e—r!" his appalled mother slowly exclaimed—so slowly that each letter seemed to shiver out by itself in horrified disjunction. "Well, at any rate," she declared with returning vigor, "I'm glad you have had enough of it to bring you to your senses and bring you home!"
"Oh, I've had enough all right. My cubic contents of ache is—well, you wouldn't believe a man of my size could hold so much discomfort. But that isn't the only thing that brought me home. It was—er—I might say, mother, that it was suggested to me."
"Suggested? I do not understand."