It was very boyish, but it went straight. So straight that Trefethen did not speak, and the lad went on eagerly: “Looks like you were in a scrape this minute, from the cock of your eye. Is it money? All right. Here I be. Just use me for a battering-ram or any old thing, and I’ll take charge of you and the governor together.”
At that Trefethen found his voice and his hand fell on the huge shoulder. “You’re adopted,” he said. “Just remember that. But I don’t need you just at present—not that way. I’m doing rather well financially.”
Suddenly he drew back a step, and put his hands in his pockets and stared at the boy quizzically, a slow smile coming in his eyes. “You’re a dear lad,” he said, and his voice sounded strange to him. “But you’re an expensive luxury. That afternoon at New Haven cost me five million dollars down, and Heaven knows how many more by this time.” The boy stared, amazed. “I don’t grudge it, you know. What I got for it has paid, and will. I got a new point of view and a sense of proportion. I got a suspicion that what men want millions for is happiness, and that millions don’t bring it; I got a startling and original impression that the only way to get anything out of life is to live it for other people; I got the thought that service and not selfishness is the measure of a man’s value, and I got—oh, I got this thing rubbed in with salt and lemon juice till it smarted like the devil—I got the idea that to play the game fairly is the first thing required if you mean to be a man at all.”
The boy gasped. “Who are you?” he stammered.
“Wait a minute. I was just going over the edge of a precipice. I’d have slid down pleasantly—a long way down—and I’d have wallowed in gold at the bottom, and it would have been a mighty cold, hard bed, too. I’d have been miserable and lonely, with half the world envying me, after I’d got there. But there were two or three strings tied to me yet—and they were lying up on God’s earth above the precipice, and you boys got hold of them and yanked me back. Great Scott, but you yanked manfully!” he said, and laughed and shook his head at the memory. “It wasn’t your political economy—I’d read things something like what you said. But I saw myself through your eyes—honest eyes. You had nothing to gain or lose, and you gave me your sincere thoughts—and you gave ’em from the shoulder, you’ll allow me to say. Jove, how you roasted me! A spirit that I’d forgotten about was in every word, and I caught it, and I’m trying to keep the disease, for I believe that, from a practical point of view, it’s the spirit that will bring a man peace at the last—and all along.”
“Who are you?” Dick Elliot demanded again in a frightened voice.
“I think you half know,” the other said. “I’m Marcus Lord Trefethen, and I’ll never be the richest man in the world, and I thank Heaven for it. Don’t hate me, boy—don’t be afraid of me, for your friendship’s important to me,” he went on. “You remember what you said—you’d stand by me. I need you now.” And the young face brightened and smiled frankly at him.
“Ginger, I’ll do it, too!” he said. “You’re worth saving. You can’t phase me just by being a bloated bondholder, Mr. Lor—Mr. Trefethen.”
“That’s the sort,” said Trefethen gladly. “And as you belong to me a bit—adopted, you remember—you’re to take that hundred thousand to your father from me. We’ll send him a Marconi that will stagger him.”
Elliot gasped again. “Oh, no—I can’t do that—I wouldn’t have told you,” he stammered.