re are not worse men. He isn't to my taste, though
he might be ever so much to my conscience."

"I suppose," said the son, "that there is nothing really to be ashamed
of in mineral paint. People go into all sorts of things."

His father took his cigarette from his mouth and once more looked his
son full in the face. "Oh, is THAT it?"

"It has crossed my mind," admitted the son. "I must do something.
I've wasted time and money enough. I've seen much younger men all
through the West and South-west taking care of themselves. I don't
think I was particularly fit for anything out there, but I am ashamed
to come back and live upon you, sir."

His father shook his head with an ironical sigh. "Ah, we shall never
have a real aristocracy while this plebeian reluctance to live upon a
parent or a wife continues the animating spirit of our youth. It
strikes at the root of the whole feudal system. I really think you owe
me an apology, Tom. I supposed you wished to marry the girl's money,
and here you are, basely seeking to go into business with her father."

Young Corey laughed again like a son who perceives that his father is a
little antiquated, but keeps a filial faith in his wit. "I don't know
that it's quite so bad as that; but the thing had certainly crossed my
mind. I don't know how it's to be approached, and I don't know that
it's at all possible. But I confess that I 'took to' Colonel Lapham
from the moment I saw him. He looked as if he 'meant business,' and I
mean business too."

The father smoked thoughtfully. "Of course people do go into all sorts
of things, as you say, and I don't know that one thing is more ignoble
than another, if it's decent and large enough. In my time you would
have gone into the China trade or the India trade--though I didn't; and
a little later cotton would have been your manifest destiny--though it
wasn't mine; but now a man may do almost anything. The real-estate
business is pretty full. Yes, if you have a deep inward vocation for
it, I don't see why mineral paint shouldn't do. I fancy it's easy
enough approaching the matter. We will invite Papa Lapham to dinner,
and talk it over with him."

"Oh, I don't think that would be exactly the way, sir," said the son,
smiling at his father's patrician unworldliness.

"No? Why not?"

"I'm afraid it would be a bad start. I don't think it would strike him
as business-like."

"I don't see why he should be punctilious, if we'