ts
except he smokes too much; but slow, Lord! Why, if we don't give him
a shove the poor dumb-bell never will propose! And Rone just as bad.
Slow."

"Yes, I guess you're right. They're slow. They haven't either one of 'em
got our pep."

"That's right. They're slow. I swear, dad, I don't know how Rone got
into our family! I'll bet, if the truth were known, you were a bad old
egg when you were a kid!"

"Well, I wasn't so slow!"

"I'll bet you weren't! I'll bet you didn't miss many tricks!"

"Well, when I was out with the girls I didn't spend all the time telling
'em about the strike in the knitting industry!"

They roared together, and together lighted cigars.

"What are we going to do with 'em?" Babbitt consulted.

"Gosh, I don't know. I swear, sometimes I feel like taking Ken aside and
putting him over the jumps and saying to him, 'Young fella me lad, are
you going to marry young Rone, or are you going to talk her to death?
Here you are getting on toward thirty, and you're only making twenty or
twenty-five a week. When you going to develop a sense of responsibility
and get a raise? If there's anything that George F. or I can do to help
you, call on us, but show a little speed, anyway!'"

"Well, at that, it might not be so bad if you or I talked to him, except
he might not understand. He's one of these high brows. He can't come
down to cases and lay his cards on the table and talk straight out from
the shoulder, like you or I can."

"That's right, he's like all these highbrows."

"That's so, like all of 'em."

"That's a fact."

They sighed, and were silent and thoughtful and happy.

The conductor came in. He had once called at Babbitt's office, to ask
about houses. "H' are you, Mr. Babbitt! We going to have you with us to
Chicago? This your boy?"

"Yes, this is my son Ted."

"Well now, what do you know about that! Here I been thinking you were
a youngster yourself, not a day over forty, hardly, and you with this
great big fellow!"

"Forty? Why, brother, I'll never see forty-five again!"

"Is that a fact! Wouldn't hardly 'a' thought it!"

"Yes, sir, it's a bad give-away for the old man when he has to travel
with a young whale like Ted here!"

"You're right, it is." To Ted: "I suppose you're in college now?"

Proudly, "No, not till next fall. I'm just kind of giving the diff'rent
colleges the once-over now."

As the conductor went on his affable way, huge watch-chain jingling
against his blue