a City. One didn't need a great deal of law to
practice in Comstock days--more nerve and mining sense. But I've
regretted always that I didn't have a more thorough preparation.
Still, every man to his own way. This may be best for you."

"That's what I think," said Bertram Chester. "When I got through High
School in Tulare, Dad said, 'Unless you want to stay on the ranch,
you'd better foot it for college.' I didn't want to ranch it, and I
saw that college must be the best place for a start. Dad put up for
the first year. I might have stretched it out to cover a little of my
Sophomore year if I'd been careful. I was a pretty fresh Freshman," he
added.

"And your mother?" asked Mrs. Tiffany. "I suppose she was crazy for
you to go."

"Yes, I suppose she would have been. She's been dead ten years. How
hard is it to get into a law office in San Francisco?" he added,
shifting.

Judge Tiffany met the direct hint with a direct parry.

"We have five thousand attorneys in San Francisco and only five
hundred of them are making a living."

"Yes, I know it is overcrowded," said Bertram Chester, not a particle
abashed.

After black coffee on the piazza, the two college boys swung off down
the lane, Bertram smoking rapidly at one of the Judge's cigars.

"He can be almost anything," said the Judge, meditatively.

"Even a gentleman?" gently inquired Mrs. Tiffany.

"Perhaps that isn't necessary in our Western way of life. Thank God,
we haven't come yet to the point where the caste of Vere de Vere is
necessary to us."

"I wish I had it," he went on, a little wistfully.

"Gentility? why Edward, if anyone--"

"Oh no, my dear. I may say that was half the trouble. So many
considerations came up; so many things I didn't want to do, so many it
didn't seem right to do. I was forever turning aside to wrestle with
my feelings on those things, and forever hesitating. Half the time,
after the opportunity was gone by, I discovered that my scruples had
been foolish; but I always discovered afterward. I don't believe that
success lies that way in a new world."

He had risen; and now his wife rose and stood beside him.

"You are forever talking as though you were a failure. I know you're
not. Everyone knows you're not."

"The parable of the ten talents, Mattie. Not how much we've got, but
how much interest we've earned on our powers. However, we had that out
long ago, my dear. Yes, I know. I promised not to talk and think this
way.