Donald shook his head.

“Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, father, I’ll read the accounting in your eye when you get back to Port Agnew.”

“You braw big scoundrel!  You’ve been up to something.  Tell it me, man, or I’ll die wi’ the suspense of it.”

“Well,” Donald replied, “I lived on twenty-five hundred a year in college and led a happy life.  I had a heap of fun, and nothing went by me so fast that I didn’t at least get a tail-feather.  My college education, therefore, cost me ten thousand dollars, and I managed to squeeze a roadster automobile into that, also.  With the remaining ninety thousand, I took a flier in thirty-nine hundred acres of red cedar up the Wiskah River.  I paid for it on the instalment plan —­yearly payments secured by first mortgage at six per cent., and——­”

“Who cruised it for you?” The Laird almost shouted.  “I’ll trust no cruiser but my own David McGregor.”

“I realized that, so I engaged Dave for the job.  You will recall that he and I took a two months’ camping-trip after my first year in Princeton.  It cruised eighty thousand feet to the acre, and I paid two dollars and a half per thousand for it.  Of course, we didn’t succeed in cruising half of it, but we rode through the remainder, and it all averaged up very nicely.  And I saw a former cruise of it made by a disinterested cruiser——­”

The Laird had been doing mental arithmetic.

“It cost you seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars—­and you’ve paid ninety thousand, principal and interest, on account.  Why, you didn’t have the customary ten per cent, of the purchase-price as an initial payment!”

“The owner was anxious to sell.  Besides, he knew I was your son, and I suppose he concluded that, after getting ninety thousand dollars out of me at the end of three years, you’d have to come to my rescue when the balance fell due—­in a lump.  If you didn’t, of course he could foreclose.”

“I’ll save you, my son.  It was a good deal—­a splendid deal!”

“You do not have to, dad.  I’ve sold it—­at a profit of an even two hundred thousand dollars!”

“Lad, why did you do it?  Why didn’t you take me into your confidence?  That cedar is worth three and a half.  In a few years, ’twill be worth five.”

“I realized that, father, but—­a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush—­and I’m a proud sort of devil.  I didn’t want to run to you for help on my first deal, even though I knew you’d come to my rescue and ask no questions.  You’ve always told me to beware of asking favors, you know.  Moreover, I had a very friendly feeling toward the man I sold my red cedar to; I hated to stick him too deeply.”

“You were entitled to your profit, Donald.  ’Twas business.  You should have taken it.  Ah, lad, if you only knew the terrible four years I’ve paid for yon red-cedar!”

“You mean the suspense of not knowing how I was spending my allowance?”