As he drove away he was thinking, “Carson’s a success; I’m not.  Odd thing, that I should find myself envying a chap whose place I couldn’t be hired to take.  I envy him—­not exactly his knowledge and skill, but his being a definite factor, his being a man who carries responsibilities and makes good, so that—­well, so that he’s ’in line for promotion.’  That phrase takes hold of me somehow; I wonder why?  Well, the next thing is to see grandfather.”

* * * * *

Old Matthew Kendrick was alone.  His grandson had just left him.  He was marching up and down his private library.  His hands were clasped tightly behind his back; above his flushed brow his white hair stood erect from frequent thrustings of his agitated fingers; even his cravat, slightly awry, bore witness to his excitement.

“Gad!” he was saying to himself.  “The boy’s alive after all!  The boy’s waked up!  He’s taking notice!  And the thing that’s waked him up is a country store—­by cricky! a country store!  I believe I’m dreaming yet!”

If the citizens of the thriving town of Eastman, almost of a size to call itself a young city and boast of a mayor, could have heard him they might not have been flattered.  Yet when they remembered that this was the owner of a business so colossal that its immense buildings and branches were to be found in three great cities, they might have understood that to him the corner store of Hugh Benson looked like a toy concern, indeed.  But he liked the look of it, as it had been presented to his mind’s eye that night; no doubt but he liked the look of it!

“Give him Carson to go up there and manage the business for those two infants-in-arms?  Gad! yes, go myself and make change at the desk for the new firm,” he chuckled, “if that would keep Dick interested.  But I guess he’s interested enough or he wouldn’t have agreed to my ruling that he must go into the thing himself, not stand off and throw out a rope to his drowning friend Benson.  If young Benson’s the man Dick makes him out, it’s as I told Dick:  he wouldn’t grasp the rope.  But if Dick goes in after him, that’s business.  Bless the rascal!  I wish his father could see him now.  Sitting on the edge of my table and talking window-dressing to me as if he’d been born to it, which he was, only he wouldn’t accept his birthright, the proud beggar!  Talking about moving one of our show-windows up there bodily for a white-goods sale in February; date a trifle late for Kendrick & Company, but advance trade for Eastman, undoubtedly.  Says he knows they can start every mother’s daughter of ’em sewing for dear life, if they can get their eye on that sewing-room scene.  Well”—­he paused to chuckle again—­“he says Carson says that window cost us five hundred dollars; but if it did it’s cheap at the price, and I’ll make the new firm a present of it.  Benson & Company—­and a grandson of Matthew Kendrick the Company!”

He laughed heartily, then paused to stand staring down into the jewelled shade of his electric drop-light as if in its softly blending colourings he saw the outlines of a new future for “the boy.”