irst chance yet?"

He nodded cheerfully. "Not a single first, to say nothing of doubtful
seconds."

"Then it's because you haven't tried," she asserted.

"Of course; but that doesn't mean that some one else hasn't tried. I've
been the dutiful son, waiting for 'papa' to show him that the paternal
way is the only way; but even the pater hasn't proved a blooming success
in that line. The real trouble is that the old man is too conscientious.
Just as the President gets all worked up and just crazy to send me as
minister plenipotentiary to the Republic of Zuzu, the pater coughs
guiltily, and murmurs, 'Oh, yes; he's a good boy, if he is my son, but
he hasn't been brought up in my school,' and shows by every movement
that he knows he's passing off a gold brick. Then, of course, the whole
game is up."

"Why doesn't he take you into his own business?" Mrs. Gorham asked.

"Jealousy or judgment; can't say which."

"Do be serious, Allen," Alice insisted. "I don't believe you have any
strong feelings about it anyway. No wonder your father gets out of
patience with you if you talk to him about it as you do to us."

"Oh, he gets out of patience, all right," Allen admitted, "but it's
simply because he can't refute my arguments. He talks about what he was
doing at my age, but I tell him my record is a whole lot better than
his. He couldn't afford to go to college, while I could, and at the same
proud point in our careers I was successfully touching him for five
hundred a month, while he was with great difficulty earning a hundred
and fifty, on which he supported a family. But the pater--well, the
pater has a way of looking at things which is all his own."

"There is absolutely no use expecting to talk business with you," the
girl declared. "Father won't discuss it with me, and you won't be
serious at all, and I know Mr. Covington is really laughing at me all
the time, even though he tries to make me think that he looks upon me as
a very business-like young woman."

"Who is Mr. Covington?" Allen asked, bluntly, inwardly resenting the
fact that any one except her father was as intimate with Alice as the
words indicated.

"He's father's right-hand man in the Consolidated Companies. If you
could once see him and father at work and hear them talk you would
understand the fascination of it."

"Then you like business conversation?" The boy found it difficult to
comprehend.

"Better than anything else in the world."

Allen beca