"Oh, I guess he could have been just as great, or greater if he hadn't worked," remarked Terry sententiously. "It isn't only poor boys that amount to——"
"Mostly," said Bill.
"Oh, of course, you'd say that. We'll charge your attitude up to envy."
"When I size up some of the rich men's sons I know, I'm rather glad I'm poor," said Bill, "and I would rather make a thousand dollars all by my own efforts than inherit ten thousand."
"I guess you'd take what you could get," Terry offered, and Bill was quick to reply:
"We know there'll be a lot coming to you and it will be interesting to know what you'll do with it and how long you'll have it."
"He will never add anything to it," said Ted, who also was the son of wealth, but not in the least snobbish. The others all laughed at this and Terry turned away angrily.
Bill, further inspired by what he deemed an unfair reference to Edison, began to wax eloquent to the others concerning his hero.
"I don't believe Edison would have amounted to half as much as he has if he hadn't had the hard knocks that a poor fellow always gets. Terry makes me tired with his high and mighty——"
"Oh, don't you mind him!" said Cora.