times is the best fellow. Isn't that right?"
"Some people would tell you that the same thing holds true in business."
"I know; but in business there seems to be something more tangible to
work on. Of course I don't know anything about it, but I think I could
make a better show selling bonds or cotton than _ententes cordiales_."
"Have you made any effort to secure a position?"
"Not yet, Mr. Gorham. The pater would be more than peeved if I didn't
wait for him and his diplomatic expectations. But if he doesn't get busy
pretty soon, I think I'll hike it over to New York, and see what's
doing."
Gorham smiled in spite of the boy's earnestness. "Surely your father
would realize how much in earnest you are if you talked to him as you're
talking to me now."
"Father always looks upon me as a joke," Allen continued. "He made his
own way, you see, and then, because he was rich, he didn't want me to
endure the hardships which really made him what he is. He gave me plenty
of money all the way through Harvard, and ever since, in fact; yet he is
always wondering why I lack 'initiative.' He's been mighty generous, and
I appreciate it all, but don't you think it's one thing to build your
own character and economize because you have to, and another to
economize when you know you don't have to? I guess that's my complaint."
"He was very proud of what you did at college," Gorham said. "I never
used to meet him without hearing about some of your athletic triumphs."
"I suspect it is you who call them triumphs," Allen replied; "that
doesn't sound like the pater to me. Of course, some of the things I did
in college seemed worth while at the time; I tried for the football
team, and I made it--by hard work, with a hundred other fellows doing
their best to push me back on the side lines; I tried for the crew, and
I made it; I rowed two years at New London, and there was some work
about that. I'm afraid I made athletics my vocation and studies my
avocation, but I tried to do what I undertook as well as I knew how, and
some of the boys still think I'm pretty good in certain lines."
"Life is scarcely a football-field, my boy," Gorham remarked,
sententiously. "The world of business admits of no vacuum. It is the
survival of the fittest, and work is the great secret of success."
"I know what a 'vacuum' is, anyway," Patricia was recovering from her
temporary chagrin.
"Now is your chance to square yourself," said her father, turning
|