“Aw, pop, a feller nowadays without a college education don’t stand a show.”

“He don’t, don’t he?  I know one who will.”

Edwin threw a quivering glance to his mother and gulped through a constricted throat.

“Mother says I—­I can go if only you—­”

“Your mother’d say you could have the moon, too, if she had to climb a greased pole to get it.  She’d start weaving door-mats for the Cingalese Hottentots if she thought they needed ’em.”

“But, Harry, he—­”

“Your mother ’ain’t got the bills of this shebang to worry about, and your mother don’t mind having a college sissy a-laying around the house to support five years longer.  I do.”

“It’s the free City College, pop.”

“You got a better education now than nine boys out of ten.  If you ain’t man enough to want to get out after four years of high school and hustle for a living, you got to be shown the way out.  I started when I was in short pants, and you’re no better than your father.  Your mother sold notions and axle-grease in an up-State general store up to the day she married.  Now cut out the college talk you been springing on me lately.  I won’t have it—­you hear?  You’re a poor man’s son, and the sooner you make up your mind to it the better.  Pass the chow-chow, mother.”

Nervousness had laid hold of her so that in and out among the dishes her hand trembled.

“You see, Harry, it’s the free City College, and—­”

“I know that free talk.  So was high school free when you talked me into it, but if it ain’t one thing it’s been another.  Cadet uniform, football suit—­”

“The child’s got talent for invention, Harry; his manual-training teacher told me his air-ship model was—­”

“I got ninety in manual training when the other fellers only got seventy.”

“I guess you’re looking for another case like your father, sitting penniless around the house, tinkering on inventions up to the day he died.”

“Pa never had the business push, Harry.  You know yourself his churn was ready for the market before the Peerless beat him in on it.”

“Well, your son is going to get the business push trained into him.  No boy of mine with a poor daddy eats up four years of his life and my salary training to be a college sissy.  That’s for the rich men’s sons.  That’s for the Clarence Ungers.”

“I’ll pay it back some day, pop; I—.”

“They all say that.”

“If it’s the money, Harry, maybe I can—­”

“If it didn’t cost a cent, I wouldn’t have it.  Now cut it out—­you hear?  Quick!”

Edwin Ross pushed back from the table, struggling and choking against impending tears.  “Well, then, I—­I—­”

“And no shuffling of feet, neither!”

“He didn’t shuffle, Harry; it’s just his feet growing so fast he can’t manage them.”

“Well, just the samey, I—­I ain’t going into the theayter business.  I—­I—­”