"It'll keep him mighty busy, even at best," acknowledged Welton, "and he's going to make some bad breaks. I know that."
"Bad breaks cost money," Orde reminded him.
"So does any education. Even at its worst this can't cost much money. He can't wreck things—the organization is too good—he'll just make 'em wobble a little. And this is a mighty small and incidental proposition, while this California lay-out is a big project. No, by my figuring Bob won't actually do much, but he'll lie awake nights to do a hell of a lot of deciding, and----."
"Oh, I know," broke in Orde with a laugh; "you haven't changed an inch in twenty years—and 'it's not doing but deciding that makes a man,'" he quoted.
"Well, isn't it?" demanded Welton insistently.
"Of course," agreed Orde with another laugh. "I was just tickled to see you hadn't changed a hair. Now if you'd only moralize on square pegs in round holes, I'd hear again the birds singing in the elms by the dear old churchyard."
Welton grinned, a trifle shamefacedly. Nevertheless he went on with the development of his philosophy.
"Well," he asserted stoutly, "that's just what Bob was when I got there. He can't handle figures any better than I can, and Collins had been putting him through a course of sprouts." He paused and sipped at his glass. "Of course, if I wasn't absolutely certain of the men under him, it would be a fool proposition. Bob isn't the kind to get onto treachery or double-dealing very quick. He likes people too well. But as it is, he'll get a lot of training cheap."
Orde ruminated over this for some time, sipping slowly between puffs at his cigar.
"Why wouldn't it be better to take him out to California now?" he asked at length. "You'll be building your roads and flumes and railroad, getting your mill up, buying your machinery and all the rest of it. That ought to be good experience for him—to see the thing right from the beginning."