“Now, I’d say you’re wrong. I’d say he’d be just the kind of man to take that kind of a story to. Your old man has got nothing to learn about human nature, son.”
Potter felt the moment had come for fuller confidence if he hoped to succeed. He had anticipated this objection and intended to combat it by laying stress on his own reasons for not wishing to tell his father. These he felt would make a good impression upon any man. He launched into the broad outlines of his story. Colonel Cobb listened with seriousness and attention until he had finished. When Potter mentioned the manner in which he had come to town that morning his eye lighted up with a spark of the warmth that had marked his first reception.
“H’m,” he chuckled. “I like that. Yep, I used to hop those blamed things myself. Then they got me to workin’ for ’em, and since then I’ve had to ride in style—but I don’t enjoy it as much.”
He ruminated on in silence, puffing at the pipe held in one hand and combing his beard downward with the other, at every stroke or so stopping to scratch the tip of his thrust out chin, and drawing down his lower lip somewhat in the manner of a bitted horse. Potter noticed the long, blackened roots of his teeth, his puffy, reddish skin, and the tiny network of blood vessels and wrinkles that crisscrossed his cheeks around the eyes and nose. He felt a sudden disgust for life, for the rotten universe and for his own silly predicament. He grew restless, wishing for a decision one way or the other, scarcely caring which it should be.
“You’re at college, you said?” asked the Colonel.
“Yes, State University. Two years.”
“How are you doin’ up there in your studies?”
“Well, a little better than the average, Colonel, right along,” said Potter, smiling. It was somewhat less than the truth, yet he regretted the words immediately, as a boast. But the Colonel did not mind.
“That’s good,” he said, heartily.
He lurched forward in his big leather swivel chair and laid down his pipe.