ain Zelotes tilted back his own desk chair upon its
springs and looked at him.

"Well, son," he said, after a moment, "what do you think of it?"

"Think of it? I don't know exactly what--"

"Of the place here. Shop, yards, the whole business. Z. Snow and
Company--what do you think of it?"

Privately Albert was inclined to classify the entire outfit as one-horse
and countrified, but he deemed it wiser not to express this opinion. So
he compromised and replied that it "seemed to be all right."

His grandfather nodded. "Thanks," he observed, dryly. "Glad you find it
that way. Well, then, changin' the subject for a minute or two, what do
you think about yourself?"

"About myself? About me? I don't understand?"

"No, I don't suppose you do. That's what I got you over here this
mornin' for, so as we could understand--you and me. Al, have you given
any thought to what you're goin' to do from this on? How you're goin' to
live?"

Albert looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"How I'm going to live?" he repeated. "Why--why, I thought--I supposed I
was going to live with you--with you and Grandmother."

"Um-hm, I see."

"I just kind of took that for granted, I guess. You sent for me to come
here. You took me away from school, you know."

"Yes, so I did. You know why I took you from school?"

"No, I--I guess I DON'T, exactly. I thought--I supposed it was because
you didn't want me to go there any more."

"'Twasn't that. I don't know whether I would have wanted you to go there
or not if things had been different. From what I hear it was a pretty
extravagant place, and lookin' at it from the outside without knowin'
too much about it, I should say it was liable to put a lot of foolish
and expensive notions into a boy's head. I may be wrong, of course; I
have been wrong at least a few times in my life."

It was evident that he considered the chances of his being wrong in this
instance very remote. His tone again aroused in the youth the feeling of
obstinacy, of rebellion, of desire to take the other side.

"It is one of the best schools in this country," he declared. "My father
said so."

Captain Zelotes picked up a pencil on his desk and tapped his chin
lightly with the blunt end. "Um," he mused. "Well, I presume likely he
knew all about it."

"He knew as much as--most people," with a slight but significant
hesitation before the "most."

"Um-hm. Naturally, havin' been schooled there himself, I suppose."

"He wasn'