“I think he is.”

“Um—­ah!  And does he—?” on down through a long list of questions.

At last, after once more relighting his cigar, which had gone out frequently during the conversation, he turned to his nephew and fixed him sharply with a fat pale-blue eye.

“Tell me the worst you know about him, Thomas!  What are his faults?” he snapped, and settled back to squint at his imaginary stage again.

“Why—­I—­Why, I don’t think he has any,” declared Tennelly, shifting uneasily in his chair.  He had a feeling that Uncle Ramsey would get it out of him yet.  And he did.

“Yes, I perceive that he has!  Out with it!” snapped the keen old bird, flinging his loose lips about restively.

“It’s only that he’s got a religious twist lately, uncle.  I don’t think it’ll last.  I really think he is getting over it!”

“Religion!  Um!  Ah!  Well, now that might not be so bad—­not for my purpose, you know.  Religion really gives a confidence sometimes.  Religion!  Um!  Ah!  Not a bad trait.  Let me see him, Thomas!  Let me see him at once!”

Tennelly had said nothing to Courtland about the approaching uncle, and therefore it was wholly a surprise to Courtland when Tennelly knocked on his door and dragged him from his books to meet a Chicago uncle.

“He’s come East looking for the right man to fill a very important position.  It is something along your line, I guess, so I spoke to him about you,” whispered Tennelly, hastily, as they crossed the hall together.

Face to face they stood, the financier and the young senior, and studied each other keenly for the fraction of a second, Courtland no less cool and impressive in his way than the older man.  For Courtland was not afraid of any man, and his natural attitude toward all men was challenge till he knew them.  He stood straight and tall and looked Uncle Ramsey in the eye critically, questioningly, courteously, but with no attempt to propitiate; and not the slightest apparent conception of the awesomeness of the occasion or the condescension of the august personage whom he was thus permitted to meet.

And Uncle Ramsey liked it!

True, he tried to fix the young man much as a cook fixes a roast with a skewer, to be put over the fire; but Courtland didn’t skew.  He just sat down indifferently and looked the man over; smiled pleasantly now and then, and listened; but he didn’t give an inch.  Even when the marvelous proposition was made to him which might change the whole course of his future life and cover his name with glory (?) Courtland never flickered an eyelash.

“He took it as calmly as if I’d been offering him toast with his tea when he already had bread and jam, the young whelp!” marveled Uncle Ramsey, delightedly, after Courtland had thanked him, promised to think it over, and gone back to his room.  “He’s got the personality, all right!  He’ll do!  But what’s his idea in being so reluctant?  Didn’t the offer strike him as big enough, or what’s the matter?  I must say I don’t like to wait.  When I find a man I like to nail him.  What’s the idea, Thomas?  Has he got something else up his sleeve?”