t Carroll had attempted to keep
in the current of her husband's activities, but as the latter broadened
in scope and became more complex, she perceived that their explanation
wearied him. She grew out of the habit of asking him about them. Soon
their rapid advance had carried them quite beyond her horizon. To her,
also, as to most women, the word "business" connoted nothing but a
turmoil and a mystery.

In all other things they were to each other what they had been from the
first. No more children had come to them. Bobby, however; had turned out
a sturdy, honest little fellow, with more than a streak of his mother's
charm and intuition. His future was the subject of all Orde's plans.

"I want to give him all the chance there is," he explained to Carroll.
"A boy ought to start where his father left off, and not have to do the
same thing all over again. But being a rich man's son isn't much of a
job."

"Why don't you let him continue your business?" smiled Carroll, secretly
amused at the idea of the small person before them ever doing anything.

"By the time Bobby's grown up this business will all be closed out,"
replied Orde seriously.

He continued to look at his minute son with puckered brow, until Carroll
smoothed out the wrinkles with the tips of her fingers.

"Of course, having only a few minutes to decide," she mocked, "perhaps
we'd better make up our minds right now to have him a street-car
driver."

"Yes!" agreed Bobby unexpectedly, and with emphasis.

Three years after this conversation, which would have made Bobby just
eight, Orde came back before six of a summer evening, his face alight
with satisfaction.

"Hullo, bub!" he cried to Bobby, tossing him to his shoulder. "How's the
kid?"

They went out together, while awaiting dinner, to see the new setter
puppy in the woodshed.

"Named him yet?" asked Orde.

"Duke," said Bobby.

Orde surveyed the animal gravely.

"Seems like a good name," said he.

After dinner the two adjourned to the library, where they sat together
in the "big chair," and Bobby, squirmed a little sidewise in order the
better to see, watched the smoke from his father's cigar as it eddied
and curled in the air.

"Tell a story," he commanded finally.

"Well," acquiesced Orde, "there was once a man who had a cow--"

"Once upon a time," corrected Bobby.

He listened for a moment or so.

"I don't like that story," he then announced. "Tell the story about the
bears."

"B