“Yet I’ve known men to succeed at work for which they had no original aptitude,” returned Mr. Aston quietly.
“Mightn’t they have succeeded better at what they did like?”
“That is beside the mark, so that they did not fail altogether. I knew a soldier once,” he went on dreamily, “just a private. A good chap. He was a 141 soldier because he was born and bred in the midst of a regiment, but his one passion was music. He taught himself a little instead of learning his drill. In the end he deserted and joined a German band. That argues nothing for his musical taste, you say. He just thought it a stepping-stone, but it was a tombstone. He was quite a smart soldier, too.”
“Well, I think it was jolly hard lines on him to have to be a soldier at all, if he didn’t like it. He wanted a Cæsar to help him out. I think all fellows ought to have a chance, there should be someone or something to say, ‘what do you want to be?’”
“You’d be surprised how few could answer. Prove your point yourself anyway, my dear boy. Succeed.”
“I mean to,” said Christopher with shut teeth and an intonation that reminded both men of Peter Masters himself.
“We are all of us Roadmakers of one kind or another,” went on Mr. Aston meditatively, “making the way rougher or smoother for those who come after us. Happy if we only succeed in rolling in a few of the stones that hurt our own feet.”
“You are rather like a steam roller,” remarked Aymer quietly, “it hadn’t struck me before.”
Mr. Aston rumpled his hair distractedly and Christopher giggled.
“I wasn’t talking of myself at all,” said Mr. Aston hastily. “I was merely thinking of you making things smooth for Christopher. You are much more like a steam roller than I am. You are bigger.”