less beat him in on it."

"Well, your son is going to get the business push trained into him. No boy
of mine with a poor daddy eats up four years of his life and my salary
training to be a college sissy. That's for the rich men's sons. That's for
the Clarence Ungers."

"I'll pay it back some day, pop; I--."

"They all say that."

"If it's the money, Harry, maybe I can--"

"If it didn't cost a cent, I wouldn't have it. Now cut it out--you hear?
Quick!"

Edwin Ross pushed back from the table, struggling and choking against
impending tears. "Well, then, I--I--"

"And no shuffling of feet, neither!"

"He didn't shuffle, Harry; it's just his feet growing so fast he can't
manage them."

"Well, just the samey, I--I ain't going into the theayter business. I--I--"

Mr. Ross flung down his napkin, facing him. "You're going where I put you,
young man. You're going to get the right kind of a start that I didn't get
in the biggest money-making business in the world."

"I won't. I'll get me a job in an aeroplane-factory."

His father's palm came down with a small crash, shivering the china. "By
Gad! you take that impudence out of your voice to me or I'll rawhide it
out!"

"Harry!"

"Leave the table!"

"Harry, he's only a child--"

"Go to your room!"

His heavy, unformed lips now trembling frankly against the tears he tried
so furiously to resist, Edwin charged with lowered head from the room, sobs
escaping in raw gutturals.

Mr. Ross came back to his plate, breathing heavily, fist, with a knife
upright in it, coming down again on the table, his mouth open, to
facilitate labored breathing.

"By Heaven! I'll cowhide that boy to his senses! I've never laid hand on
him yet, but he ain't too old. I'll get him down to common sense, if I got
to break a rod over him."

Handkerchief against trembling lips, Mrs. Ross looked after the vanished
form, eyes brimming.

"Harry, you--you're so rough with him."

"I'll be rougher yet before I'm through."

"He's only a--"

"He's rewarding the way you scrimped to pay his expenses for nonsense clubs
and societies by asking you to do it another four years. You're getting
your thanks now. College! Well, not if the court knows it--"

"He's got talent, Harry; his teacher says he--"

"So'd your father have talent."

"If pa hadn't lost his eye in the Civil War--"

"I'm going to put my son's talent where I can see a future for it."

"He's ambitious, Harry."

"So'm I--to