“You see my weakness.  You see that I want you with me, and now you take advantage—­you take advantage—­”

“No, father, I don’t,” protested Jefferson; “but I want to go away.  Although I have my studio and am practically independent, I want to go where I shall be perfectly free—­where my every move will not be watched—­where I can meet my fellow-man heart to heart on an equal basis, where I shall not be pointed out as the son of Ready Money Ryder.  I want to make a reputation of my own as an artist.”

“Why not study theology and become a preacher?” sneered Ryder.  Then, more amiably, he said:  “No, my lad, you stay here.  Study my interests—­study the interests that will be yours some day.”

“No,” said Jefferson doggedly, “I’d rather go—­my work and my self-respect demand it.”

“Then go, damn it, go!” cried his father in a burst of anger.  “I’m a fool for wasting my time with an ungrateful son.”  He rose from his seat and began to pace the room.

“Father,” exclaimed Jefferson starting forward, “you do me an injustice.”

“An injustice?” echoed Mr. Ryder turning round.  “Ye gods!  I’ve given you the biggest name in the commercial world; the most colossal fortune ever accumulated by one man is waiting for you, and you say I’ve done you an injustice!”

“Yes—­we are rich,” said Jefferson bitterly.  “But at what a cost!  You do not go into the world and hear the sneers that I get everywhere.  You may succeed in muzzling the newspapers and magazines, but you cannot silence public opinion.  People laugh when they hear the name Ryder—­when they do not weep.  All your millions cannot purchase the world’s respect.  You try to throw millions to the public as a bone to a dog, and they decline the money on the ground that it is tainted.  Doesn’t that tell you what the world thinks of your methods?”

Ryder laughed cynically.  He went back to his desk, and, sitting facing his son, he replied: 

“Jefferson, you are young.  It is one of the symptoms of youth to worry about public opinion.  When you are as old as I am you will understand that there is only one thing which counts in this world—­money.  The man who has it possesses power over the man who has it not, and power is what the ambitious man loves most.”

He stopped to pick up a book.  It was “The American Octopus.”  Turning again to his son, he went on: 

“Do you see this book?  It is the literary sensation of the year.  Why?  Because it attacks me—­the richest man in the world.  It holds me up as a monster, a tyrant, a man without soul, honour or conscience, caring only for one thing—­money; having but one passion—­the love of power, and halting at nothing, not even at crime, to secure it.  That is the portrait they draw of your father.”

Jefferson said nothing.  He was wondering if his sire had a suspicion who wrote it and was leading up to that.  But Ryder, Sr., continued: