“The first of September,” Archie laughed. “I shan’t forget that date.”
In the end he had good cause to remember it.
Before Archie left the office Sir Archibald led him to the broad window behind the desk. Archie was used to this. It was his father’s 207 habit. The thing was not done in a spirit of boasting, as the boy was very well aware. Nor was it an attempt to impress the boy with a sense of his own importance and future wealth in the world. It was rather a well-considered and consistent effort to give him a sense of the reality and gravity of the obligations that would some day be his. From the broad window Archie looked out once more upon the various activities of his father’s great business. There were schooners fitting out for the fishing cruise to the Labrador; there were traders taking in stores for the voyage to the Straits of Belle Isle, to the South Coast, to the French Shore; there were fore-and-afters outbound to the Grand Banks and waiting for a favourable wind; there were coastwise vessels, loading flour and pork for the outport merchants; there were barques awaiting more favourable weather in which to load salt-cod for the West Indies and Spain.
All this never failed to oppress Archie a little as viewed from the broad window of his father’s office.
“Look!” said Sir Archibald, moving a hand to include the shipping and storehouses.
Archie gazed into the rainy day. 208
“What do you see?” his father asked, in a way half bantering, half grave.
“Your ships and wharves, sir.”
“Some day,” said Sir Archibald, “they will be yours.”