From the Housetops | Page 9

resolute, determined, sincere fellow, Braden,
and you have in you the making of a splendid character. You will
succeed in anything you undertake. I like your eye, my boy, and I like
the set of your jaw. You have principle and you have a sense of
reverence that is quite uncommon in these days of ours. I daresay you
have been wicked in an essential sort of way, and I fancy you have
been just as necessarily honourable. I don't like a mollycoddle. I don't
like anything invertebrate. I despise a Christian who doesn't understand
Christ. Christ despised sin but he didn't despise sinners. And that brings
us back to Mrs. Tresslyn,--Constance Blair that was. You will have to
be exceedingly well fortified, my boy, if you expect to withstand the
clever Constance. She is the refinement of maternal ambition. She will
not be satisfied to have her daughter married to a mere practice. She
didn't bring her up for that. She will ask me to come and see her within
the next few days. What am I to say to her when she asks me if I expect
you and Anne to live on what you can earn out of your ridiculous
profession?"
"I think that's all pretty well understood," said Braden easily. "You do
Mrs. Tresslyn an injustice, granddaddy. She says it will be a splendid
thing for Anne to struggle along as we shall have to do for a while.
Character building, is the way she puts it."
"Just the same, I shall expect a message from her before the
engagement is announced," said the old man drily.
A hard glitter had come into his eyes. He loved this good-looking,

earnest grandson of his, and he was troubled. He lay awake half the
night thinking over this piece of not unexpected news.
The next morning at breakfast he said to Braden: "See here, my boy,
you spoke to me recently about your desire to spend a year in and about
the London hospitals before settling down to the real business of life.
I've been thinking it over. You can't very well afford to pay for these
finishing touches after you've begun struggling along on your own
hook, and trying to make both ends meet on a slender income, so I'd
suggest that you take this next year as a gift from me and spend it on
the other side, working with my good friend, Sir George Bascombe, the
greatest of all the English surgeons. I don't believe you will ever regret
it."
Braden was overjoyed. "I should like nothing better, grandfather. By
jove, you are good to me. You--"
"It is only right and just that I should give to the last of my race the
chance to be a credit to it." There was something cryptic in the remark,
but naturally it escaped Braden's notice. "You are the only one of the
Thorpes left, my boy. I was an only son and, strange as it may appear, I
was singularly without avuncular relatives. It is not surprising,
therefore, that I should desire to make a great man out of you. You
shall not be handicapped by any failure on my part to do the right thing
by you. If it is in my power to safeguard you, it is my duty to exercise
that power. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way or to obstruct
your progress. Nothing must be allowed to check your ambition or
destroy your courage. So, if you please, I think you ought to have this
chance to work with Bascombe. A year is a short time to a chap of your
age and experience, and it may be the most valuable one in a long and
successful life."
"If I can ever grow to be half as wise and half as successful as you,
grandfather, I shall have achieved more than--"
"My boy, I inherited my success and I've been more of a fool than you
suspect. My father left me with two or three millions of dollars, and the
little wisdom that I have acquired I would pass on to you instead of

money if it were possible to do so. A man cannot bequeath his wisdom.
He may inherit it, but he can't give it away, for the simple reason that
no one will take it as a gift. It is like advice to the young: something to
disregard. My father left me a great deal of money, and I was too much
of a coward to become a failure. Only the brave men are failures. They
are the ones who take the risks. If you are going to be a surgeon, be a
great one. Now, when do you think you can go to London?"
Braden, his face