“What in God’s name do you want, sir!” Witherspoon exclaimed.  He was walking up and down the room, not with the regular paces which had marked his stroll a few moments before, but with the uneven tread of anger.  “What in God’s name can you ask?”

He turned upon Henry, and standing still, gave him a look of hard inquiry.

“I ask nothing in God’s name, and surely nothing in my own.  I knew that this would put you out, and I dreaded it, but it had to come.  Suppose that at my age the opportunity to manage a cattle ranch had been offered you.”

“I would have taken it; I would have made it the biggest cattle ranch in the country.  It galls me, sir, it galls me to see my own children sticking up their noses at honest employment.”

“Pardon me, but so far as I am concerned you are wrong.  I seek honest employment.  But what is the most honest employment?  Any employment that yields an income?  No; but the work that one is best fitted for and which is therefore the most satisfactory.  If you had shaped my early life”—­

“Andrew was a fool!” Witherspoon broke in.  “He was crazy.”

“But he was something of a gentleman, sir.”

“Gentleman!” Witherspoon snorted; “he was the worst of all thieves—­a child-stealer.”

“And had you been entirely blameless, sir?”

“What! and do you reproach me?  Now look here.”  He pointed a shaking finger at Henry.  “Don’t you ever hint at such a thing again.  My God, this is disgraceful!” he muttered, resuming his uneven walk.  “My hopes were so built up.  Now you knock them down.  What the devil do you want, sir!” he exclaimed, wheeling about.

“I will tell you if you will listen.”

“Oh, yes, of course you will.  It will no doubt do you great good to humiliate me.”

“When you feel, sir, that I am humiliating you, one word is all you need to say.”

“What’s that?  Come now, no foolish threats.  What is it you want to do?”

“I have an idea,” Henry answered, “that I could manage a newspaper.”

“The devil you have.”

“Yes, the devil I have, if you insist.  I am a newspaper man and I like the work.  It holds a fascination for me while everything else is dull.  Now, I have a proposal to make, not a modest one, perhaps, but one which I hope you will patiently consider—­if you can.  It would be easy for you to get control of some afternoon newspaper.  I can take charge of it, and in time pay back the money you invest.  I don’t ask you to give me a cent.”

The merchant was about to reply, when Mrs. Witherspoon entered the room.  “Why, what is the matter?” she asked.

Witherspoon resumed his seat, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, stretched forth his legs, crossed his feet and nervously shook them.

“What is the matter?” she repeated.

“Everything’s the matter,” Witherspoon declared.  “I have suggested”—­he didn’t say demanded—­“that Henry should go into the store and gradually take charge of the whole thing, and he positively refuses.  He wants to ran a newspaper.”  The merchant grunted and shook his feet.