"So do we all," Lyman replied, "and nearly always on account of money. I wish there wasn't a penny in the world."
"Sometimes there isn't, so far as I am concerned," Caruthers said. "No, sir," he added, "they keep money out of my way. And I want to tell you that I'm not a bad business man, either. But I'm close to forty and haven't laid up a cent, and nothing that I can ever say in praise of myself can overcome that fact. I don't see, however, why you should be a failure. You have generations of money makers behind you."
"Yes, hundreds of years behind me," said Lyman. "And the vein was worked out long before I came on. There is no failure more complete than the one that comes along in the wake of success. But I am not going to remain a failure. I'll strike it after awhile."
"I think you have struck it now," replied Caruthers. "Business will liven up in a day or two. When a thing touches bottom it can't go any further down, but it may rise."
"Yes," said Lyman, "unless it continues to lie there."
"But we must stir it up," Caruthers declared. "We've got the enterprise all right—we've got the will, and now all that's needed is something for us to take hold of."
"That's about so," Lyman agreed. "Unless a man has something to lift, he can never find out how strong he is."
And thus they talked until after the midnight hour, until Caruthers, his feet on a table, his head thrown back, his pipe between the fingers of his limp hand, fell asleep. Lyman sat there, more thoughtful, now that he felt alone. At the threshold of a new venture, we look back upon the hopes that led us into other undertakings, and upon many a failure we bestow a look of tender but half reproachful forgiveness. The trials and the final success of other men make us strong. And with his mild eyes set in review, Lyman thought that never before had he found himself so well seasoned, so well prepared to do something. He listened to the grinding of the press, to the midnight noises about the public square, the town muttering in its sleep. "I am advancing" he mused, looking about him. "I was not content to skimp along in New England, nor to buy cross-ties, nor to singe the pin feathers off a chicken at night, nor to worry with the feeble machinery of a dull schoolboy's head. And I will not be content merely to sit here and wait for clients that may never come. I am going to do something."