nographer, the last of the procession, Bibbs had a feeling that
they all understood that he was a failure as a great man's son, a
disappointment, the "queer one" of the family, and that he had been
summoned to judgment--a well-founded impression, for that was exactly
what they understood.

"Sit down," said Sheridan.

It is frequently an advantage for deans, school-masters, and worried
fathers to place delinquents in the sitting-posture. Bibbs sat.

Sheridan, standing, gazed enigmatically upon his son for a period of
silence, then walked slowly to a window and stood looking out of it, his
big hands, loosely hooked together by the thumbs, behind his back. They
were soiled, as were all other hands down-town, except such as might be
still damp from a basin.

"Well, Bibbs," he said at last, not altering his attitude, "do you know
what I'm goin' to do with you?"

Bibbs, leaning back in his chair, fixed his eyes contemplatively upon
the ceiling. "I heard you tell Jim," he began, in his slow way. "You
said you'd send him to the machine-shop with me if he didn't propose to
Miss Vertrees. So I suppose that must be your plan for me. But--"

"But what?" said Sheridan, irritably, as the son paused.

"Isn't there somebody you'd let ME propose to?"

That brought his father sharply round to face him. "You beat the devil!
Bibbs, what IS the matter with you? Why can't you be like anybody else?"

"Liver, maybe," said Bibbs, gently.

"Boh! Even ole Doc Gurney says there's nothin' wrong with you
organically. No. You're a dreamer, Bibbs; that's what's the matter,
and that's ALL the matter. Oh, not one o' these BIG dreamers that put
through the big deals! No, sir! You're the kind o' dreamer that just
sets out on the back fence and thinks about how much trouble there must
be in the world! That ain't the kind that builds the bridges, Bibbs;
it's the kind that borrows fifteen cents from his wife's uncle's
brother-in-law to get ten cent's worth o' plug tobacco and a nickel's
worth o' quinine!"

He put the finishing touch on this etching with a snort, and turned
again to the window.

"Look out there!" he bade his son. "Look out o' that window! Look at the
life and energy down there! I should think ANY young man's blood would
tingle to get into it and be part of it. Look at the big things young
men are doin' in this town!" He swung about, coming to the mahogany desk
in the middle of the room. "Look at what I was doin' at your age! Loo