“If you cannot decide for yourself, how can you expect me to decide for myself?”
“I do know. I have decided. I am simply waiting for Roger’s judgment to confirm my choice. I want him to talk father over. Father wants one of his sons in the business, and Maurice declares he will not go in—he wants to be an architect. He has decided talent; as I have not, but am only commonplace and a drudgery sort of a fellow; I may take business instead of medicine to please father and help Maurice out. Mother beseeches me to please father; she almost put it ‘obey’ my father. What do you advise me?”
“O, John, is it like that? I thought there was nothing in the way but your own choice.”
“There is not. Father will give a grudging consent. I think he gave me my California trip to give me time to think—perhaps to think of his wishes. He went into the business to please his father.”
“He has not regretted it.”
“Far from it. He congratulates himself. I know a fellow whose father gave him a ‘thrashing’ to make him go to college; his grandfather had given his father a ‘thrashing’ and made him go.”
“Did he go?”
“The fellow I know? No; he ran away.”
“Do you want to run away?”
“I ran away to Bensalem to ask Roger.”