of years of intimacy had tested his worth, and had this
not been the case his friendship with Roger had proved the tough fiber
of his manliness. Of all their son's college acquaintances there was
none who had been welcomed into the Galbraith home with the cordiality
that had greeted Robert Morton. At first they had received him
graciously for their boy's sake, but later this initial sufferance had
been supplanted by an affectionate regard existing purely because of
his own merits. They had loaded him with favors, pressed their
hospitality upon him, and but for a certain pride and independence that
restrained them would have smoothed his financial difficulties with the
same lavishness they had those of their son.

Many a time Mr. Galbraith, unable to endure the sight of Bob's rigid
self-denial, had delicately hinted at assistance, only to have the
offer as delicately declined. It hurt and piqued the financier to be
so firmly kept at a distance and be obliged to witness privations which
a small gift of money might have alleviated; moreover he liked his own
way and did not enjoy being balked in it by a schoolboy. Yet beneath
his irritation he paid tribute to the self-respecting determination
that had prompted the rebuff. The world in which he moved held few men
of such ideals. Rather he had repeatedly been courted by the grafter,
the promoter, the social climber, each beneath a thinly disguised
friendship working for his own selfish ends. But here at last was the
novel phenomena of one who scorned pelf, who would not even allow his
gratitude to be bought. The sight was refreshing. It rejuvenated the
New Yorker's jaded belief in human nature.

Forced to withdraw his bounty, he had sat back and watched while the
academic career of the two young men wore on and at its close had seen
the roads of the classmates divide, his own boy entering the law
school, while Robert Morton, whose mind had always been of scientific
trend, enrolled at Technology, there to take up post-graduate work in
naval architecture. The choice of this subject reflected largely the
capitalist's influence, for his own great fortune had been amassed in
an extensive shipbuilding enterprise in which he saw the opportunity of
placing advantageously a young man of Robert Morton's exceptional
ability. The promised position was a variety of favor that Bob, proud
though he was, saw no reason for declining. The opening, to be sure,
would be his as a c