y master in his own place to
every one; and during the hours of business he did nothing to
distinguish Corey from the half-dozen other clerks and book-keepers in
the outer office, but he was not silent about the fact that Bromfield
Corey's son had taken a fancy to come to him. "Did you notice that
fellow at the desk facing my type-writer girl? Well, sir, that's the
son of Bromfield Corey--old Phillips Corey's grandson. And I'll say
this for him, that there isn't a man in the office that looks after his
work better. There isn't anything he's too good for. He's right here
at nine every morning, before the clock gets in the word. I guess it's
his grandfather coming out in him. He's got charge of the foreign
correspondence. We're pushing the paint everywhere." He flattered
himself that he did not lug the matter in. He had been warned against
that by his wife, but he had the right to do Corey justice, and his
brag took the form of illustration. "Talk about training for
business--I tell you it's all in the man himself! I used to believe in
what old Horace Greeley said about college graduates being the poorest
kind of horned cattle; but I've changed my mind a little. You take
that fellow Corey. He's been through Harvard, and he's had about every
advantage that a fellow could have. Been everywhere, and talks half a
dozen languages like English. I suppose he's got money enough to live
without lifting a hand, any more than his father does; son of Bromfield
Corey, you know. But the thing was in him. He's a natural-born
business man; and I've had many a fellow with me that had come up out
of the street, and worked hard all his life, without ever losing his
original opposition to the thing. But Corey likes it. I believe the
fellow would like to stick at that desk of his night and day. I don't
know where he got it. I guess it must be his grandfather, old Phillips
Corey; it often skips a generation, you know. But what I say is, a
thing has got to be born in a man; and if it ain't born in him, all the
privations in the world won't put it there, and if it is, all the
college training won't take it out."

Sometimes Lapham advanced these ideas at his own table, to a guest whom
he had brought to Nantasket for the night. Then he suffered exposure
and ridicule at the hands of his wife, when opportunity offered. She
would not let him bring Corey down to Nantasket at all.

"No, indeed!" she said. "I am not going to have