e summer; and if his son
had any qualms about the life he had entered upon with such vigour, it
must have been a relief to him that there was scarcely a soul left to
wonder or pity. By the time people got back to town the fact of his
connection with the mineral paint man would be an old story, heard afar
off with different degrees of surprise, and considered with different
degrees of indifference. A man has not reached the age of twenty-six
in any community where he was born and reared without having had his
capacity pretty well ascertained; and in Boston the analysis is
conducted with an unsparing thoroughness which may fitly impress the
un-Bostonian mind, darkened by the popular superstition that the
Bostonians blindly admire one another. A man's qualities are sifted as
closely in Boston as they doubtless were in Florence or Athens; and, if
final mercy was shown in those cities because a man was, with all his
limitations, an Athenian or Florentine, some abatement might as justly
be made in Boston for like reason. Corey's powers had been gauged in
college, and he had not given his world reason to think very
differently of him since he came out of college. He was rated as an
energetic fellow, a little indefinite in aim, with the smallest amount
of inspiration that can save a man from being commonplace. If he was
not commonplace, it was through nothing remarkable in his mind, which
was simply clear and practical, but through some combination of
qualities of the heart that made men trust him, and women call him
sweet--a word of theirs which conveys otherwise indefinable
excellences. Some of the more nervous and excitable said that Tom
Corey was as sweet as he could live; but this perhaps meant no more
than the word alone. No man ever had a son less like him than
Bromfield Corey. If Tom Corey had ever said a witty thing, no one
could remember it; and yet the father had never said a witty thing to a
more sympathetic listener than his own son. The clear mind which
produced nothing but practical results reflected everything with
charming lucidity; and it must have been this which endeared Tom Corey
to every one who spoke ten words with him. In a city where people have
good reason for liking to shine, a man who did not care to shine must
be little short of universally acceptable without any other effort for
popularity; and those who admired and enjoyed Bromfield Corey loved his
son. Yet, when it came to accounting f