Yes; I was born in Syracuse."

"Protestant?"

"My father is a Scotch Seceder."

"What business is your father in?"

Beaton faltered and blushed; then he answered:

"He's in the monument business, as he calls it. He's a tombstone
cutter." Now that he was launched, Beaton saw no reason for not
declaring, "My father's always been a poor man, and worked with his own
hands for his living." He had too slight esteem socially for Dryfoos to
conceal a fact from him that he might have wished to blink with others.

"Well, that's right," said Dryfoos. "I used to farm it myself. I've got
a good pile of money together, now. At first it didn't come easy; but
now it's got started it pours in and pours in; it seems like there was
no end to it. I've got well on to three million; but it couldn't keep me
from losin' my son. It can't buy me back a minute of his life; not all
the money in the world can do it!"

He grieved this out as if to himself rather than to Beaton, who,
scarcely ventured to say, "I know--I am very sorry--"

"How did you come," Dryfoos interrupted, "to take up paintin'?"

"Well, I don't know," said Beaton, a little scornfully. "You don't take
a thing of that kind up, I fancy. I always wanted to paint."

"Father try to stop you?"

"No. It wouldn't have been of any use. Why--"

"My son, he wanted to be a preacher, and I did stop him or I thought I
did. But I reckon he was a preacher, all the same, every minute of his
life. As you say, it ain't any use to try to stop a thing like that. I
reckon if a child has got any particular bent, it was given to it; and
it's goin' against the grain, it's goin' against the law, to try to bend
it some other way. There's lots of good business men, Mr. Beaton, twenty
of 'em to every good preacher?"

"I imagine more than twenty," said Beaton, amused and touched through
his curiosity as to what the old man was driving at by the quaint
simplicity of his speculations.

"Father ever come to the city?"

"No; he never has the time; and my mother's an invalid."

"Oh! Brothers and sisters?"

"Yes; we're a large family."

"I lost two little fellers--twins," said Dryfoos, sadly. "But we hain't
ever had but just the five. Ever take portraits?"

"Yes," said Beaton, meeting this zigzag in the queries as seriously as
the rest. "I don't think I am good at it."

Dryfoos got to his feet. "I wish you'd paint a likeness of my son.
You've seen him plenty of times. We won't fight about t