"Just think of me selling nails,"—he always referred to the hardware business as "selling nails,"—he said to his mother when she spoke to him of the Colonel's hope that he would try to take his brother's place. "All I know about business is just enough to draw a check if the bank will keep the account straight. Poor Colonel! That germ ought to have got me instead of Junior!"
"You owe it to your father, Vick. You can't be more useless than Bob Parrott, and your father would like to see you in the office—for a time any way."
Vickers refrained from saying that there was an unmentioned difference between him and Bob Parrott. Young Parrott had never shown the desire to do anything, except play polo; while he might,—at least he had the passion for other things. The family, he thought, took his music very lightly, as a kind of elegant toy that should be put aside at the first call of real duty. Perhaps he had given them reason by his slow preparation, his waiting on the fulness of time and his own development to produce results for the world to see. Isabelle alone voiced a protest against this absorption of the young man into the family business.
"Why, he has his own life! It is too much of a sacrifice," she remonstrated.
"Nothing that can give your father comfort is too much of a sacrifice,"
Mrs. Price replied sharply.
"It can't last long," Isabelle said to Vickers. "The Colonel will see,—he is generous."
"He will see that I am no good fast enough!"
"He will understand what you are giving up, and he is too large hearted to want other people to do what they are not fitted to do."
"I don't suppose that the family fortunes need my strong right arm exactly?" the young man inquired.
"Of course not! It's the sentiment, don't you see?"