Father Adam nodded, and his eyes lit.
"Sure," was all he commented.
"Anyway, I feel like it," Bull laughed. "When I learned all these things I started right in to think. I thought like hell. I said to myself something like this: 'There's nothing to hold me where I am. There's no one around to care a curse. There's that feeling right inside the pit of my stomach makes me feel I want to make good. I want to build up around me all that my birth has refused me. A name, a life circle, a power, a—anyway, get right out and do things! Well, what was I going to do? It needed thinking. Then I hit the notion."
He laughed again. He was gazing in at himself and laughing at the conceits he knew were real, and strong, and vital.
"Say." He nodded at the prospect through the doorway. "There it is. This country's beginning. We don't know half it means to the world yet. Well, I hadn't enough capital to play with, so I resolved right away to start in and learn a trade from its first step to its topmost rung, and to earn my keep right through. Meanwhile my capital's lying invested against the time I open out. I'm going to jump right into the groundwood pulp business when the time comes. And out of that I mean to build a name that folks won't easily forget. Well, I guess you won't find much that's interesting in all this. It don't sound anything particularly bright or new. But for what it is it's my notion, and—I'm going to put it through. That's why I'm here. I'm learning my job from the bottom."
The decision and force of the man were remarkable. The conciseness of his story, and his indifference to the tragedy of his birth, indicated a level mind under powerful control. And Father Adam knew he had made no mistake.
"It's the best story I've heard in years," he replied, a whimsical smile lighting his dark eyes.
"Is it?"
Bull's smile was no less whimsical.
"Yes. You've guts of iron, boy. And I've been looking years for just such a man."