rty.

"Plenty of 'em, pappy; lots of 'em! The old world is moving right along;
it would be a pity if it didn't, don't you think? But about this pipe
business: I want you to make over these patents to me."

"They're yours now, Tom; everything I've got will be yours in a little
while," said the father; but his voice betrayed the depth of that
thrust. Was the new Tom beginning so soon to grasp and reach out
avariciously for the fruit of the old tree?

"You ought to know I don't mean it that way," said Tom, frowning a
little. "But here is the way it sizes up. There is money in this
pipe-making; some money now, and big money later on. Farley has refused
to go into it unless you make it a company proposition; as president and
a controlling stock-holder you can't very well go into it now without
making it in some sort a company proposition. But you can transfer the
patents to me, and I can contract with Chiawassee Consolidated to make
pipe for me."

Caleb Gordon's frown matched that of his son.

"That would certainly be givin' Colonel Duxbury a dose of his own
medicine; but I don't like it, Tom. It looks as if we were taking
advantage of him."

"No. I'd make the proposition to him, personally, if he were here, and
the boss; and he'd be a fool if he didn't jump at it," said Tom
earnestly. "But there is more to it than that. If we make a go of this,
and don't protect ourselves, the two Farleys will come back and put the
whole thing in their pockets. I won't go into it on any such terms. When
they do come back, I'm going to have money to fight them with, and this
is our one little ghost of a chance. Ring up Judge Bates and get him to
come over here and make a legal transfer of these patents to me."

The thing was done, though not without some misgivings on Caleb's part.
Honesty and fair dealing, even with a known enemy, had been the rule of
his life; and while he could not put his finger on the equivocal thing
in Tom's plan, he was vaguely troubled. Analyzed after the fact, the
trouble was vicarious, and for Tom. It defined itself more clearly when
they went together to South Tredegar to have an attorney draw up the
agreement under which Tom's pipe venture was to be conducted. Tom, as
the owner of the patents, was fair with the Chiawassee Consolidated, but
he was not liberal; indeed, he would have been quite illiberal if the
attorney had not warned him that an agreement, to be defensible, must be
equitable as well as lega