As soon as he had gone Mr. Smith motioned Billy to a seat and listened with no interruption, while the boy told his errand. For a time after he had finished, the man of affairs continued to draw meaningless designs on the blotter, till Billy grew first hot, then cold, and wished himself away.
“What can you do?”
“I—I don’t know. Isn’t there a lot of just common work to do on your railroad that you’re building over to Tum-wah? I surely can do digging; I am strong.”
“Yes, there is plenty of digging,” Mr. Smith said absently, and again lapsed into silence.
“Does your mother know you’re doing this?” he questioned so suddenly at last that Billy jumped.
“She doesn’t know I’m here to-day, but she knows that I intend to work this summer,—perhaps right along.”
“Do you intend to dig in the dirt for a living?”
The stern words stung Billy as a whiplash. “No, sir. I hope to do something better—I shall do something better after a while,” he added with an energy that pleased Mr. Smith.
“Have you decided what you will make your life work?”
“I’ve thought of—” He was about to say journalism but something about this fearless, successful man made the boy feel young and very ignorant. “I had thought of trying to get on a newspaper.”