nd I'd have given him credit for more common
sense--"

"Now, Champney, stop right where you are. Don't boil over so." She
repressed a smile. "Let's talk business and look at matters as they
stand."

"I can't;" he said doggedly; "I can't talk business without a business
basis, and this here,"--he shook the letter much as Rag shook a
slipper,--"it's just slop! What am I going to do over there, I'd like to
know?" he demanded fiercely; whereupon his mother took the letter from
his hand and, without heeding his grumbling, read it carefully twice.

"Now, look here, Champney," she said firmly; "you must use some reason.
I admit this isn't what you wanted or I expected, but it's something;
many would think it everything. Didn't you tell me only yesterday that
in these times a man is fortunate to get his foot on any round of the
ladder--"

"Well, if I did, I didn't mean the rung of a banking house fire-escape
over in Europe." He interrupted her, speaking sulkily. Then of a sudden
he laughed out. "Go on, mother, I'm a chump." His mother smiled and
continued the broken sentence:

"--And that ten thousand fail where one succeeds in getting even a
foothold--to climb, as you want to?"

"But how can I climb? That's the point. Why, I shall be twenty-six in
five years--if I live," he added lugubriously.

His mother laughed outright. The splendid specimen of health, vitality,
and strength before her was in too marked contrast to his words.

"Well, I don't care," he muttered, but joining heartily in her laugh;
"I've heard of fellows like me going into a decline just out of pure
homesickness over there."

"I don't think you will be homesick for Flamsted; I saw no traces of
that malady while you were in New York. On the contrary, I thought you
accepted every opportunity to stay away."

"New York is different," he replied, a little shamefaced in the presence
of the truth he had just heard. "But, mother, you would be alone here."

"I'm used to it, Champney;" she spoke as it were perfunctorily; "and I
am ambitious to see you succeed as you wish to. I want to see you in a
position which will fulfil both your hopes and mine; but neither you nor
I can choose the means, not yet; we haven't the money. For my part, I
think you should accept this offer; it's one in ten thousand. Work your
way up during these five years into Mr. Van Ostend's confidence, and I
am sure, _sure_, that by that time he will have something for you that
will sat