“Well, the long and the short of it was that I asked him round here to Maroni’s to dinner; and before we broke up for the night we had settled the financial side of the plan that’s brought you to New York.”

“I can see,” said Fulkerson, who had kept his eyes fast on March’s face, “that you don’t more than half like the idea of Dryfoos.  It ought to give you more confidence in the thing than you ever had.  You needn’t be afraid,” he added, with some feeling, “that I talked Dryfoos into the thing for my own advantage.”

“Oh, my dear Fulkerson!” March protested, all the more fervently because he was really a little guilty.

“Well, of course not!  I didn’t mean you were.  But I just happened to tell him what I wanted to go into when I could see my way to it, and he caught on of his own accord.  The fact is,” said Fulkerson, “I guess I’d better make a clean breast of it, now I’m at it, Dryfoos wanted to get something for that boy of his to do.  He’s in railroads himself, and he’s in mines and other things, and he keeps busy, and he can’t bear to have his boy hanging round the house doing nothing, like as if he was a girl.  I told him that the great object of a rich man was to get his son into just that fix, but he couldn’t seem to see it, and the boy hated it himself.  He’s got a good head, and he wanted to study for the ministry when they were all living together out on the farm; but his father had the old-fashioned ideas about that.  You know they used to think that any sort of stuff was good enough to make a preacher out of; but they wanted the good timber for business; and so the old man wouldn’t let him.  You’ll see the fellow; you’ll like him; he’s no fool, I can tell you; and he’s going to be our publisher, nominally at first and actually when I’ve taught him the ropes a little.”

XII.

Fulkerson stopped and looked at March, whom he saw lapsing into a serious silence.  Doubtless he divined his uneasiness with the facts that had been given him to digest.  He pulled out his watch and glanced at it.  “See here, how would you like to go up to Forty-sixth street with me, and drop in on old Dryfoos?  Now’s your chance.  He’s going West tomorrow, and won’t be back for a month or so.  They’ll all be glad to see you, and you’ll understand things better when you’ve seen him and his family.  I can’t explain.”

March reflected a moment.  Then he said, with a wisdom that surprised him, for he would have liked to yield to the impulse of his curiosity:  “Perhaps we’d better wait till Mrs. March comes down, and let things take the usual course.  The Dryfoos ladies will want to call on her as the last-comer, and if I treated myself ‘en garcon’ now, and paid the first visit, it might complicate matters.”

“Well, perhaps you’re right,” said Fulkerson.  “I don’t know much about these things, and I don’t believe Ma Dryfoos does, either.”  He was on his legs lighting another cigarette.  “I suppose the girls are getting themselves up in etiquette, though.  Well, then, let’s have a look at the ‘Every Other Week’ building, and then, if you like your quarters there, you can go round and close for Mrs. Green’s flat.”