sent
the survival of the fittest. What's the boy like?"

"He ails at times, sir--being without a mother's care. I am having him
privately instructed. He has some youthful stirrings toward grace."

Old Rosewarne swung round at a standstill. "Grace?" he echoed, for the
moment supposing it the name of a girl. Then perceiving his mistake, he
broke out into a short laugh; but the laugh ended bitterly, and his face
twitched with pain.

"Look here, Sam; I'm going to leave you the money. Don't stare--and
don't, I beg, madden me with your thanks."--

"I'm sure, sir."--

"You'll get it because I can't help myself. There's your half-sister's
children at home; but of what use to me is a girl or a blind boy?
You are narrow--narrow as the grave: but I find that, like the grave, you
are inevitable; and, like the grave, you keep what you get. For the kind
of finance that was the true game of manhood to your grandfather and me,
you have no capacity whatever. No, I cannot explain. Finance? Why, you
haven't even a _sense_ of it. Yet in a way you are capable. You will
make the money yield interest, and will keep the race going. That is what
I look to--you will keep the race going. Now I want to speak about that
boy of yours. Do me the only favour I have ever asked you--send him to a
public school, and afterwards to college, and let him have his fling."

Sam thought his father must have gone mad. "What, sir! After all you
have said of such places! 'Dens of idleness,' 'sinks of iniquity'--I have
heard you scores of times!"

"I spoke as a fool. 'Twas my punishment, perhaps, to believe it; but,
Lord!"--he eyed his son up and down--"to think my punishment should take
this form!" He caught Sam's arm suddenly and wheeled him about in face of
a glass shop-front. "Man, look at yourself! Make the boy something
different from _that!_ Do what I'd have done for you if ever you had
given me a chance. Turn him loose among gentlemen; don't be afraid if he
idles and wastes money; let him riot out his youth if he will--he'll be
learning all the time, learning something you don't know how to teach, and
maybe when his purse is emptied he'll come back to you a gentleman.
I tell you there's no difference in the world like that between a
gentleman and a man who's not a gentleman. Money can't buy it; and, after
the start, money can't change or hide it. The thing is there, or it
isn't."

"Whatever the thing is," said Sam sullenly