“What’s the use of throwing that at me?” snapped his brother, his face crimsoning. “He isn’t with us now, is he?”
“No. But you were just as snobbish when you said these people in the car were ‘decent.’ You know as well as I do that if we are going to succeed at Chikau, or wherever we settle, you must get over it. The people out in Washington are every bit as good as we are. You can’t judge a Westerner by his clothes or his talk. A man may look like a tramp and work in the fields with his men and yet be worth no end of money. Hustle all the time, early and late, is the custom out there. And there’s no taint to mixing with the help and working with your hands out West, as there is in the East. Westerners take a man for what he is, not what his family are, or ancestors were. Most of the successful men out there went out penniless, like ourselves, and they have no use for snobs.”
“I didn’t know you’d been out West. Where did you get your information?” sneered Phil, angry at the reproof, and all the more because, in his heart, he realized it was merited.
“I knew you’d get mad, but I don’t care. Dr. Blair told me to talk to you.”
At this statement the elder boy sat up straight.
“When?” he demanded.
“You know that letter I received at Detroit and wouldn’t show you? Well, it was in that.”
Surprised and mortified by this information, Phil sat in silence, subjecting himself to a searching self-examination. And neither boy noticed a kindly old gentleman, seated across the aisle from them, who nodded approvingly at Ted.
As the best all-round athlete in his school, Phil had been looked up to and, in some cases, worshipped by his mates. Because he was young, this had given him an undue appreciation of himself. But it was a shock to him to learn that Dr. Blair had noticed the fact and that his manner of superiority was so evident that the physician felt called upon to warn him against it.
“Did Blair say anything else?” he asked, finally, of the brother who had been covertly watching the effect of his verbal chastisement.