ve remarkable sons. Again and
again had he noted the tendency of remarkable men to beget gaping and
idle fools. Nevertheless, he had intensely desired to be able to be
proud of his son. He had intensely desired to be able, when
acquaintances should be sincerely enthusiastic about the merits of his
son, to pretend, insincerely and with pride only half concealed, that
his son was quite an ordinary youth.

Now his desire had been fulfilled; it had been more than fulfilled. The
town would chatter about Edwin's presence of mind for a week. Edwin's
act would become historic; it already was historic. And not only was
the act in itself wonderful and admirable and epoch-making; but it
proved that Edwin, despite his blondness, his finickingness, his
hesitations, had grit. That was the point: the lad had grit; there was
material in the lad of which much could be made. Add to this, the
father's mere instinctive gratitude--a gratitude of such unguessed depth
that it had prevented him even from being ashamed of having publicly and
impulsively embraced his son on the previous morning.

Edwin, in his unconscious egoism, ignored all that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THREE.

"I've just seen Barlow," said Darius confidentially to Edwin. Barlow
was the baker. "He's been here afore his rounds. He's willing to
sublet me his storeroom--so that'll be all right! Eh?"

"Yes," said Edwin, seeing that his approval was being sought for.

"We must fix that machine plumb again."

"I suppose the floor's as firm as rocks now?" Edwin suggested.

"Eh! Bless ye! Yes!" said his father, with a trace of kindly
impatience.

The policy of makeshift was to continue. The floor having been stayed
with oak, the easiest thing and the least immediately expensive thing
was to leave matters as they were. When the baker's stores were cleared
from his warehouse, Darius could use the spaces between the pillars for
lumber of his own; and he could either knock an entrance-way through the
wall in the yard, or he could open the nailed-down trap door and patch
the ancient stairway within; or he could do nothing--it would only mean
walking out into Woodisun Bank and up the alley each time he wanted
access to his lumber!

And yet, after the second cracking sound on the previous day, he had
been ready to vow to rent an entirely new and common-sense printing
office somewhere else--if only he should be sa