le 't'll innerfere business. Keep your
trouble 't home. Don' bring it to th' office. Might innerfere business!
Have funerals on Sunday--might innerfere business! Don' let your wife
innerfere business! Keep all, all, ALL your trouble an' your meanness,
an' your trad--your tradegy--keep 'em ALL for home use! If you got die,
go on die 't home--don' die round th' office! Might innerfere business!"

Sheridan picked up a newspaper from Roscoe's desk, and sat down with his
back to his son, affecting to read. Roscoe seemed to be unaware of his
father's significant posture.

"You know wh' I think?" he went on. "I think Bibbs only one the fam'ly
any 'telligence at all. Won' work, an' di'n' get married. Jim worked,
an' he got killed. I worked, an' I got married. Look at me! Jus' look at
me, I ask you. Fine 'dustriss young business man. Look whass happen' to
me! Fine!" He lifted his hand from the sustaining chair in a deplorable
gesture, and, immediately losing his balance, fell across the chair
and caromed to the floor with a crash, remaining prostrate for several
minutes, during which Sheridan did not relax his apparent attention to
the newspaper. He did not even look round at the sound of Roscoe's fall.

Roscoe slowly climbed to an upright position, pulling himself up
by holding to the chair. He was slightly sobered outwardly, having
progressed in the prostrate interval to a state of befuddlement less
volatile. He rubbed his dazed eyes with the back of his left hand.

"What--what you ask me while ago?" he said.

"Nothin'."

"Yes, you did. What--what was it?"

"Nothin'. You better sit down."

"You ask' me what I thought about Lamhorn. You did ask me that. Well, I
won't tell you. I won't say dam' word 'bout him!"

The telephone-bell tinkled. Sheridan placed the receiver to his ear and
said, "Right down." Then he got Roscoe's coat and hat from a closet and
brought them to his son. "Get into this coat," he said. "You're goin'
home."

"All ri'," Roscoe murmured, obediently.

They went out into the main hall by a side door, not passing through the
outer office; and Sheridan waited for an empty elevator, stopped it, and
told the operator to take on no more passengers until they reached
the ground floor. Roscoe walked out of the building and got into the
automobile without lurching, and twenty minutes later walked into his
own house in the same manner, neither he nor his father having spoken a
word in the interval.

Sheri