“Not that I know of,” said Tennelly, looking troubled.  “I guess he’s just got to think it over.  That’s Court.  He never steps into a position until he knows exactly what he thinks about it.”

“M-m-m!  Another good trait!  You’re sure it isn’t anything else?”

“I don’t know of anything unless some of his religious notions are standing in his way.  I’m sure I can’t quite make him out lately.  He had a shock a few months ago—­one of the fellows killed in a fire—­and he can’t seem to get over it quite.”

“Oh, well, we’ll fix him up all right!” said Uncle Ramsey, contentedly.  “We’ll just send him down to our model factory here in the city and let him see how things are run.  Convince him he’s doing good, and that’ll settle him!  All white marble, with vines over the place, and a big rest-room and reading-room for the hands, gymnasium on the roof, model restaurant, all up to date.  Cost a lot of money, too, but it pays!  When some whining idiot of a woman, that hasn’t enough business of her own to attend to, goes blabbing down there at Washington about the ‘conditions’ in the factories, and all that rot, we just run a few senators up here for the day and show ’em that model factory.  Oh, it pays in the long run.  You take your man there and you’ll land him all right!  By the way, there’s a little rat of a preacher down around that factory that I’d like to throttle!  He’s making us all sorts of trouble, stirring up the folks to ask for all sorts of things!  He’s putting it in their heads to demand an eight-hour day, and no telling how much more!  He’s undertaken to tell us how we ought to run our business!  Tell us which doors we shall lock and which leave unlocked, how often we shall let our hands sit down, and what kind of machines we shall get!  He’s a regular little rat!  Know him?  His name’s Burns.  Insignificant little puppy!  And he’s got a pull down there in Washington, somehow, that’s making us a lot of trouble, too!  That’s one thing I want this new man for.  I want to train him to spy on that sort of interference and by and by do some lobbying.  We must stop such business as that.  What time is it?  I guess perhaps I better run down and hunt out that little rat and give him a good scare.”

Uncle Ramsey departed “rat-hunting,” and Tennelly repaired to Courtland’s room.  He sat down and began to tell what a wonderful opportunity this was, and how unprecedented in Uncle Ramsey to have offered such a thing to a young man still in college.  It showed how wonderfully he had been taken with Courtland.  It was most flattering.

Courtland admitted that it was and that he was grateful to his friend for mentioning his name.  He said it looked like a very good thing—­like the kind of thing he had been hoping would turn up when he got through college, but he couldn’t decide it immediately.

Tennelly urged that Uncle Ramsey was insistent; that his business was urgent, and he must know one way or the other immediately.  He tried to give Courtland an adequate idea of the greatness of Uncle Ramsey, and the audacity of anybody, especially a little college upstart, attempting to keep him waiting; but Courtland only shook his head and said it wouldn’t be possible for him to give his answer at once.  If that was the condition of the offer he would have to let it pass.