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!  Look at what your own brothers are doin’!  Look at Roscoe!  Yes, and look at Jim!  I made Jim president o’ the Sheridan Realty Company last New-Year’s, with charge of every inch o’ ground and every brick and every shingle and stick o’ wood we own; and it’s an example to any young man—­or ole man, either—­the way he took ahold of it.  Last July we found out we wanted two more big warehouses at the Pump Works—­wanted ’em quick.  Contractors said it couldn’t be done; said nine or ten months at the soonest; couldn’t see it any other way.  What’d Jim do?  Took the contract himself; found a fellow with a new cement and concrete process; kept men on the job night and day, and stayed on it night and day himself—­and, by George! we begin to use them warehouses next week!  Four months and a half, and every inch fireproof!  I tell you Jim’s one o’ these fellers that make miracles happen!  Now, I don’t say every young man can be like Jim, because there’s mighty few got his ability, but every young man can go in and do his share.  This town is God’s own country, and there’s opportunity for anybody with a pound of energy and an ounce o’ gumption.  I tell you these young business men I watch just do my heart good!  They don’t set around on the back fence—­no,