“That will be for you and Major Dabney to decide,” was the even-toned response.  “I would suggest a three-cornered alliance:  a third to you, another to Farley, and the remaining third to the Major.  The pipe foundry can’t run without the furnace and, under present conditions, the furnace is pretty largely dependent on the pipe foundry for its market; and neither could run without the Major’s coal.”

“Yes, that scheme might carry far enough to hit three of us.  But whereabouts do you figure out the fourth third for yourself, son?”

“Oh, I’m not in it; or I’m not going to be after the Farleys come back.  I made up my mind to that six months ago,” said Tom coolly.

“Great Peter!” ejaculated Caleb, stirred for once out of his slow-speaking, reticent habit.  But he made amends by remaining silent for five full minutes before he hazarded the query:  “Got something else on the string, Buddy?”

“Yes, two or three things,” was Tom’s immediate and frank rejoinder.  “I can have a place as chemist with the steel people at Bethlehem; and Mr. Clarkson is anxious to have me to go to the New Arizona iron country for him.”

It was the brightest of midsummer nights, and a late moon was swinging clear of the Lebanon sky-line, but the prospect of close-clipped lawn and stately trees suddenly went dim before the eyes of the old ex-artillery-man.

“You’re all I got in this world, son, and I reckon it makes me sort o’ narrow.  I know in reason it must seem mighty little and pindlin’ down here to you, after what you’ve seen out in the big road, and I ain’t goin’ to say a word.  But if you can sort it round somehow in the mix-up so I can get a few thousand dollars quittin’ money out of it—­jest enough to keep your mammy and me from gettin’ hongry what few years we’ve got to eat, I’d be mighty proud.”

“Oh,” said Tom, still unmoved, as it seemed, “we can do better than that, if you want to pull out.  But I made sure you’d rather stay in and hold your job.  I’ve a notion you’d find ‘retiring’ pretty hard work after so many years spent in the furnace yard.”

“You’re right about that, son; I sure would,” agreed Caleb.  Then he went back to the main proposition.  “What-all makes you restless, Buddy?  Is it because Chiawassee and the pipe-makin’ ain’t big enough for you?”

Tom answered promptly and without apparent reserve.

“The job’s big enough, but I don’t want to stay here and yoke up with the Farleys; they’d ruin me in a year.”

“Get the better of you in the business—­is that what you’re aimin’ to say?”

“Not exactly.  I’m still brash enough to believe I could hold my own on that score.  But—­oh, well; you know what we found out last summer about their business methods.  I can do business that way, too; as a matter of fact, I did do a good bit more of it last year than you knew anything about.  But I’m out of it now, and I mean to stay out.”