re whether it's the best thing for you."

"Don't you want me to go into it, Dad?"

"Of course I want you with me, Boyee. But--well, frank and flat, I don't
know whether it's genteel enough for you."

"Genteel?" The younger Surtaine repeated the distasteful adjective with
surprise.

"Some folks make fun of it, you know. It's the advertising that makes it
a fair mark. 'Certina,' they say. 'That's where he made his money.
Patent-medicine millions.' I don't mind it. But for you it's different."

"If the money is good enough for me to spend, it's good enough for me to
earn," said Hal Surtaine a little grandiloquently.

"Humph! Well, the business is a big success, and I want you to be a big
success. But that doesn't mean that I want to combine the two. Isn't
there anything else you've ever thought of turning to?"

"I've got something of a leaning toward your profession, Dad."

"My prof--oh, you mean medicine."

"Yes."

"Nothing in it. Doctors are a lot of prejudiced pedants and hypocrites.
Not one in a thousand is more than an inch wide. What started you on
that?"

"I hardly know. It was just a notion. I think the scientific and
sociological side is what appeals to me. But my interest is only
theoretical."

"That's very well for a hobby. Not as a profession. Here we are, half an
hour late, as usual."

The sudden and violent bite of the brakes, a characteristic operation of
that mummy among railroads, the Mid-State and Great Muddy River,
commonly known as the "Mid-and-Mud," flung forward in an involuntary
plunge the incautious who had arisen to look after their things. Hal
Surtaine found himself supporting the weight of a fortuitous citizen who
had just made his way up the aisle.

"Thank you," said the stranger in a dry voice. "You're the prodigal son
of whom we've heard such glowing forecast, I presume."

"Well met, Mr. Pierce," called Dr. Surtaine's jovial voice. "Yes, that's
my son, Harrington, you're hanging to. Hal, this is Mr. Elias M. Pierce,
one of the men who run Worthington."

Releasing his burden Hal acknowledged the introduction. Elias M. Pierce,
receding a yard or so into perspective, revealed himself as a spare,
middle-aged man who looked as if he had been hewn out of a block,
square, and glued into a permanent black suit. Under his palely sardonic
eye Hal felt that he was being appraised, and in none too amiable a
spirit.

"A favorite pleasantry of your father's, Mr. Surtaine," said Pierce.