“So there are.”  He rubbed his face tentatively with his bandaged hand; then smiled blandly at his mother.  “Yes, there are a few.”

“Well?”

“Well, first of all, mother, I want to make a kick.”

She frowned.  “How often must I request you not to use such common expressions!”

“All right, all right,” said he.  “Suppose I say, then, that I’m dissatisfied.”

“Dissatisfied!” She straightened up.  “Dissatisfied!  What about?  Do I not allow you all the money you want?”

“Yes.”

“And have I not practically arranged a match between you and Ethel Quintard?  Ethel will have three millions some day.  And there is no better family to marry into; that is, except our own.”

“Yes, yes,—­I know.”

“And yet you say you are dissatisfied!” She stared.  “What more can you want?”

“Well, for one thing, to go to school,” was Jack’s amiable response.

“Go to school!  Why—­why, you’ve already had the best of educations!  Exeter—­Yale—­not to speak of private tutors!”

“And what did I learn?  That is,” he added, “over and above being a fairly decent half-back and learning how to spend money—­u’m—­pretty thoroughly.”

“I trust,” said Mrs. De Peyster with all her dignity, “that you learned to be a gentleman!”

“Oh, I suppose I learned that all right,” Jack acquiesced.  “And I’ve been working hard at the profession ever since—­sixteen to twenty hours a day, no half-holidays and no Sundays off.  I can’t stand it any longer.  So I’ve decided to go on strike.”

“Strike?” exclaimed his mother, bewildered.

“Yes.  For better conditions.  I’m tired loafing such long hours.  I’d like a little leisure in which to work.”

“Work!” repeated his mother—­and human voice could hardly express amazement greater than did hers.  “Work!  Jack—­you’re not in earnest?”

He held upon her a clear-eyed, humorous, but resolute face.

“Don’t I look in earnest?”

He did; and his mother could only dazedly repeat, “Work!  You go to work!”

“Oh, not at once.  No, thank you!  I want to ask you to give me a little proper education first that will equip me to do something.  You’ve spent—­how much have you spent on my education, mother?  Tens and tens of thousands, I know.  Pretty big investment, on the whole.  Now, how large returns do you suppose I can draw on that investment?”

“I was not thinking about dividends; I was thinking about fitting you for your station,” returned his mother stiffly.

“Well, as for me, I’ve been thinking of late about how much I could get out of that investment.  I’ve wanted to test myself and find what I was worth—­as a worker.”  He leaned a little closer.  “I say, mother,” he said confidentially, “you remember that little explanation I just gave you of my absence.”

“About your trip in that high-powered automobile?”