ouch with people who'd give you excellent advice."

Thor paced softly, as if afraid to make his footfalls heard. Something
within him seemed frozen, paralyzed. He was incapable of a response.

"Of course," the father continued, gently, with his engaging lisp, "I
can quite understand that you shouldn't want me to have anything to do
with it. The new generation is often distrustful of the old."

Thor beat his brains for something to say that would meet the courtesies
of the occasion without committing him; but his whole being had grown
dumb. He would have been less humiliated if his father had pleaded with
him outright.

"And yet I haven't done so badly," Masterman continued, with pathos in
his voice. "I had very little to begin with. When I first went into old
Toogood's office I had nothing at all. I made my way by thrift,
foresight, and integrity. I think I can say as much as that. Your
grandfather Thorley was unjust to me; but I've never resented it, not by
a syllable."

It was a relief to Thor to be able to say with some heartiness, "I know
that, father."

"Not that I didn't have some difficult situations to face on account of
it. When the Toogood executors withdrew the old man's money it would
have gone hard with me if I hadn't been able to--to"--Thor paused in his
walk, waiting for what was coming--"if I hadn't been able to command
confidence in other directions," the father finished, quietly.

Thor hastened to divert the conversation from his own affairs. "Mr.
Willoughby put his money in then, didn't he?"

"That was one thing," Masterman admitted, coldly.

Thor could speak the more daringly because his march up and down kept
him behind his father's back. "And now, I understand, you think of
dropping him."

"I shouldn't be dropping him. That's not the way to put it. He drops
himself--automatically." The clock on the mantelpiece ticked a few times
before he added, "I can't go on supporting him."

"Do you mean that he's used up all the capital he put in?"

"That's what it comes to. He's spent enormous sums. At times it's been
near to crippling me. But I can't keep it up. He's got to go. Besides,
the big, drunken oaf is a disgrace to me. I can't afford to be
associated with him any longer."

Thor came round to the fireplace, where he stood on the hearth-rug, his
arm on the mantelpiece. "But, father, what'll he do?"

"Surely that's his own lookout. Bessie's got money still. I didn't get
all of it, by an