Houghton gasped in surprise. "What's that—they wouldn't be anxious to go into business! Why not?"
"Why not?" There was equal amazement in the younger man's tone. "Would you be anxious to leave a place where you're surrounded by friends you've tried—friends that won't stab you in the back the next minute and call it a 'business deal'—where you're respected and in control of things, and plunge out to become a freshman in the world-life, to do the sorting and trying all over again?"
"I remember—I remember——"
"And besides, what right has any one to assume that business is above art, charity or even mere learning? Billy Tompkins, in the slums helping dagoes, is a failure to his father—so is Aspwell with his opera—so is Williams with his spectacles in his lab. But—who knows—when the Great Business is finally balanced——" He stopped, conscious that he was growing too rhetorical.
"If you loved college ideals so much more than business," observed Houghton, "then why did you come to us?"
A different light stole into the younger man's eyes. "Because"—he answered, "because I loved something else better than either." And he reached his hand under the cloth to one who understood.
That is all—except that the next offer of Consolidated Pepsin was, "Will you please name your own terms?"
