Mr. Ezra Atwood, Roger’s uncle, sat in his small parlor far beyond his usual hour for retiring, and occasionally he paced the floor so impatiently as to show that his mind was deeply perturbed.  While his nephew had studied books he had studied his nephew, and in the process the fossilization of his heart had been arrested, and the strong, steady youth had suggested hopes of something like a filial relation to the childless man.  At first he had growled to himself, “If the boy were only mine I’d make a man of him,” and then gradually the idea of adopting and making a man of him, had presented itself and slowly gained full possession of his mind.  Roger was capable, persevering, and tremendously ambitious—­qualities that were after the old man’s heart, and, after maintaining his shrewd furtive observation for months, he at last muttered to himself, “I’ll do it, for he’s got the Atwood grit and grip, and more brains than any of us.  His father is shrewd and obstinate enough, but he’s narrow, and hasn’t breadth of mind to do more than pinch and save what he can scratch out of that stony farm of his.  I’m narrow, too.  I can turn an honest penny in my line with the sharpest in the market, and I’m content; but this young fellow is a new departure in the family, and if given a chance and kept from all nonsense he can climb to the top notch.  There’s no telling how high a lawyer can get in this country if he has plenty of brains and a ready tongue.”

Thus the old man’s dominant trait, ambition, which he had satisfied in becoming known as one of the most solid and wealthy men of his calling, found in his nephew a new sphere of development.  In return for the great favors which he proposed to confer, however, he felt that Roger should gratefully accept his wishes as absolute law.  With the egotism and confidence of many successful yet narrow men, he believed himself perfectly capable of guiding the young fellow’s career in all respects, and had little expectation of any fortunate issue unless he did direct in all essential and practical matters.  Mr. Atwood worshipped common-sense and the shrewd individuality of character which separates a man from his fellows, and enables him to wrap himself in his own interests and pursuits without babbling to others or being impeded by them.  Influenced by his wife, he was kind to the poor, and charitable in a certain methodical way, but boasted to her that in his limited circle he had no “hangers-on,” as he termed them.  He had an instinctive antipathy to a class that he called “ne’er-do-weels,” “havebeens,” and “unlucky devils,” and if their misfortunes and lack of thrift resulted from causes like those destroying Mr. Jocelyn he was sternly and contemptuously implacable toward them.  He was vexed that Roger should have bothered himself with the sick man he had discovered on shipboard the day before Christmas.  “It was no affair of his,” he had grumbled; but as the young fellow had been steady as a clock