" said Mr. Grey, "I began at the bottom of an
apple tree and worked my way to the top. There I found a wasp's nest.
Then I fell and broke both arms. That was a lesson to me. Don't go up
for your pile, my boy. Go down. Go down into the beautiful earth, and
take out the precious metals."

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed David; "you're _the_ Mr. Grey of Denver."

"I have a car hitched on to this train," said the magnate; "I'd be very
glad of your company at dinner--seven-thirty. It's not every young man
that I'd invite. But seeing that you're under bond not to make love
until you've made good, I can see no objection to introducing you to my
granddaughter."

"Grandpa," said Miss Violet Grey, who was sixteen, spoiled, and
exquisite, "make that poor boy stop off at Denver, and do something for
him."

"Since when," said her grandfather, "have you been so down on apples,
miss?"

"Oh," said she with an approving shudder, "all good women fear
them--like so much poison."

"But," said Mr. Grey (Mr. "Iron Grey," some called him), "if I take this
young fellow up, it won't be to put him down in a drawing-room, but in a
hole a thousand feet deep, or thereabouts."

"And when he comes out," said she, "I shall have returned from being
finished in Europe."

"Don't know what there is so attractive about these young Eastern
ne'er-do-weels," said the old gentleman, "but this one has got a certain
something...."

"It's his inimitable truthfulness," said she.

"Not to me," said her grandfather, "so much as the way he says _w_
instead of _r_ and at the same time gives the impression of having the
makings of a man in him...."

"Oh," she said, "make him, grandpa, do!"

"And if I make him?" The old gentleman smiled provokingly.

"Why," said she, "then I'll break him."

"Or," said her grandfather, who was used to her sudden fancies and
subsequent disenchantments, "or else you'll shake him."

Then he pulled her ears for her and sent her to bed.

In one matter David was, from the beginning of his new career, firmly
resolved. He would in no case write Miss Tennant of his hopes and fears.
If he was to be promoted she was not to hear of it until after the fact;
and she should not be troubled with the sordid details of his
savings-bank account. As to fears, very great at first, these dwindled,
became atrophied, and were consumed in the fire of work from the moment
when that work changed from a daily nuisance to a daily miracle, at once