he and John are planning to go up to Washington and open an
old-fashioned oyster house. She says that people are complaining that
they can't get oysters as they did in the old days, and she is going to
show them. I wouldn't be surprised if they made a success of it. And
I tell you this--I envy John. He will have a paying business, and here
I am without a thing ahead of me, and I have married a wife and the
ravens won't feed us."

Randy stuck his hands in his pockets with an air of sudden resolution.

"Look here," he said, "why can't we go halves in this car business? It
will pay our expenses, and we can finish our law course at the
University."

"Law? Oh, look here, Randy, I thought you had given that up."

"I haven't, and why should you? We will finish, and some day we will
open an office together."

The Major, whistling softly, listened and said nothing.

"I have been thinking a lot about it," Randy went on, "and I can't see
much of a future ahead of me. Not the kind of future that our families
are expecting of us. You and I have got to stand for something,
Truxton, or some day the world will be saying that all the great men
died with Thomas Jefferson."

The Major went on with his lilting tune. What a pair they were, these
lads! Randy, afire with his dreams, and rather tragic in his dreaming.
Truxton, light as a feather--laughing.

"Why can't we give to the world as much as the men who have gone before
us?" Randy was demanding. "Are we going to take everything from our
ancestors, and give nothing to our descendants?"

Truxton chuckled. "By Jove," he said, "now that I come to think of it,
I am the head of a family--there's Fiddle-dee-dee, and I shall have to
reckon with Fiddle-dee-dee's children and grandchildren and
great-grandchildren--who will expect that my portrait will hang on the
wall at Huntersfield."

"It is all very well to laugh," said Randy hotly, "but that is the way
it looks to me; that we have got to show to the world that our
ambitions are--big. It is all very well to talk about the day's work.
I am going to do it, and pay my way, but there's got to be something
beyond that to think about--something bigger than I have ever known."

He gained dignity through the sincerity of his purpose. The Major,
still whistling softly, wondered what had come over the boy. He
recognized a difference since he had last talked to him. Randy was not
only roused; he was ready to look life in th