“Nothing in it! You’ll smell of a grindstone all your life, and be a slave besides.”
“Slave?” Billy repeated anxiously.
“Yes. The newspaper business is no longer an outlet for individual character. It’s just a machine where each man is a cog, and writes what he is told, no matter what he believes. If his stuff is good the paper gets the credit; if it isn’t he is fired.”
Billy made no reply to this, but after a moment asked, “Would not that be the way with anything I tried at first?”
“Yes, boy, it would.” There was an unexpected kindness in his tone. He rose and walked once or twice across the richly furnished office, when he stopped and looked down upon Billy, who sat with every muscle tense, his hands unconsciously gripping the chair arms.
“Billy, ever since the day you prevented that devil from kidnapping May Nell, I’ve had you in mind. I’ve no son of my own; but if I had, I’d be glad if he was as much of a man as you’ve always shown yourself.”
Again he walked the length of the room and back. “You know I wanted to educate you; but your mother was right, wiser than I. Now I’m not so sure I’m going to do this thing you’ve asked of me. If you need money to tide you through your school, Billy, I shall be more than glad to advance it. No amount of money will square what your family has done for mine. But—I’m blamed if I’m going to help you ruin your future. What you need now is school, and the university; a year or two of running about the country to see what sort of a nation you belong to; and then you’ll be fit to settle in some business where you’ll have men digging for you. That’s what I want you to do, Billy.”
The boy could not speak. This was what he had looked forward to, had planned to do, even if he had to earn his way and take years in doing it. But Erminie’s coming into his life had changed everything. Such dreams must be abandoned for a different and harder future.
At last he stood, and looked into Mr. Smith’s face steadily, but with a disappointment in his determined eyes that touched the man. “There are reasons,—reasons that I am not at liberty to mention, Mr. Smith, why I must go to work as soon as school closes; and probably I shall not be able to go back. If you had anything I could do I would rather work for you than for any one else. I’d try very hard, sir.” He hesitated an instant, but not long enough for the other to speak. “But since you don’t approve I must look farther.” He stepped toward the door.
“Here! Sit down! If you’re bound to make a fool of yourself about work it might as well be where I can hold you down to it till you’re sick of it, and come to your senses.” Mr. Smith’s eyes twinkled, and his voice was softer than his words. “You needn’t hunt any other boss. I’ll have a job for you when you come for it. How soon will that be?”