“If I could eat like that, I’d be well in a week; it’s all rubbish, this infernal diet!”
“But we tried disobeying the doctor the other night when the nurse was out, and you didn’t sleep a wink. You’ll have to be good until the doctor discharges you!”
“Don’t be silly!” he snapped. “They know mighty well they can’t cure me; they’re just hangin’ on to me as long as they can for what they get out of it. But I may fool ’em yet! My grandfather lived to be ninety and died then from bein’ kicked by a horse; and my own father got up to seventy-eight, and that gives me eight years more,” he ended defiantly.
“But you worked harder than they did, papa; you never used to come home to dinner until seven.”
“Of course I didn’t!” he flared. “These young fellows that think four hours make a day’s work are fools; you won’t see them gettin’ very far in the world, spendin’ their time flyin’ around in automobiles and playin’ golf all day!”
“Well, of course, some of the young men don’t amount to much,” she admitted conciliatingly; “but there are others who work like nailers. I suppose Mr. Eaton works as hard as any man in town; and he doesn’t need to.”
“Doesn’t need to?” Farley caught her up. “Every honest man works; a man who doesn’t work’s a loafer and very likely a blackguard. John Eaton works because he has the brains to work with! He’s a rare man, John Eaton. There ain’t many men like John, brought up as he was, with everything easy; but he’s bucklin’ down to hard work just the same, like the man he is. You say he’s comin’ up? Well, we’ll let him do the talkin’. Maybe he can get a laugh out o’ me; he says some mighty funny things—and they’re mostly true.”
He began feeling about for the evening paper that he had dropped at his side when his tray was brought in.
“Just find the market page and read through the local stock-list. I noticed they’ve put a new figure on White River Trust; I used to be a director in that company. What’s that? Two hundred eighty-five? Let me see, that’s fifteen dollars more than it was last January when I bought fifty shares at two-seventy. She’ll go three hundred in five years. It’s the safest buy in town.”
His long conference with his lawyer had left him tired and irritable. His doctor had repeatedly counseled Nan and the nurse to keep him quiet. As they seemed to be on perfectly safe ground, she began reading the financial comment preceding the general stock and bond list, and finding that he was interested, she followed it with the letter of a firm of brokers that buoyantly prophesied a strong upward movement in the immediate future. She thought he was listening attentively when he began murmuring half to himself:—