The Second Generation | Page 2

direct and do.
In the front rank of the ring of on-looking workmen stood a young man, tall as himself and like him in the outline of his strong features, especially like him in the fine curve of the prominent nose. But in dress and manner this young man was the opposite of the master workman now facing him in the dust and sweat of toil. He wore a fashionable suit of light gray tweed, a water-woven Panama with a wine-colored ribbon, a wine-colored scarf; several inches of wine-colored socks showed below his high-rolled, carefully creased trousers. There was a seal ring on the little finger of the left of a pair of large hands strong with the symmetrical strength which is got only at "polite" or useless exercise. Resting lightly between his lips was a big, expensive-looking Egyptian cigarette; the mingled odor of that and a delicate cologne scented the air. With a breeziness which a careful observer of the niceties of manner might have recognized as a disguise of nervousness, the young man advanced, extending his right hand.
"Hello, father!" said he, "I came to bring you home to lunch."
The master workman did not take the offered hand. After a quick glance of pride and pleasure which no father could have denied so manly and handsome a son, he eyed the young man with a look that bit into every one of his fashionable details. Presently he lifted his arm and pointed. The son followed the direction of that long, strong, useful-looking forefinger, until his gaze rested upon a sign: "No Smoking"--big, black letters on a white background.
"Beg pardon," he stammered, flushing and throwing away the cigarette.
The father went to the smoking butt and set his foot upon it. The son's face became crimson; he had flung the cigarette among the shavings which littered the floor. "The scientists say a fire can't be lighted from burning tobacco," he said, with a vigorous effort to repair the rent in his surface of easy assurance.
The old man--if that adjective can be justly applied to one who had such strength and energy as his--made no reply. He strode toward the door, the son following, acute to the grins and winks the workmen were exchanging behind his back. The father opened the shut street door of the cooperage, and, when the son came up, pointed to the big, white letters: "No Admittance. Apply at the Office."
"How did you get in here?" he asked.
"I called in at the window and ordered one of the men to open the door," explained the son.
"Ordered." The father merely repeated the word.
"Requested, then," said the son, feeling that he was displaying praiseworthy patience with "the governor's" eccentricities.
"Which workman?"
The son indicated a man who was taking a dinner pail from under a bench at the nearest window. The father called to him: "Jerry!" Jerry came quickly.
"Why did you let this young--young gentleman in among us?"
"I saw it was Mr. Arthur," began Jerry.
"Then you saw it was not anyone who has any business here. Who gave you authority to suspend the rules of this factory?"
"Don't, father!" protested Arthur. "You certainly can't blame him. He knew I'd make trouble if he didn't obey."
"He knew nothing of the sort," replied Hiram Ranger. "I haven't been dealing with men for fifty years--However, next time you'll know what to do, Jerry."
"He warned me it was against the rules," interjected Arthur.
A triumphant smile gleamed in the father's eyes at this vindication of the discipline of the mills. "Then he knew he was doing wrong. He must be fined. You can pay the fine, young _gentleman_--if you wish."
"Certainly," murmured Arthur. "And now, let's go to lunch."
"To dinner," corrected the father; "your mother and I have dinner in the middle of the day, not lunch."
"To dinner, then. Anything you please, pa, only let's go."
When they were at the office and the father was about to enter the inner room to change his clothes, he wheeled and said: "Why ain't you at Harvard, passing your examinations?"
Arthur's hands contracted and his eyes shifted; in a tone to which repression gave a seeming lightness, he announced: "The exams, are over. I've been plucked."
The slang was new to Hiram Ranger, but he understood. In important matters his fixed habit was never to speak until he had thought well; without a word he turned and, with a heaviness that was new in his movements, went into the dressing room. The young man drew a cautious but profound breath of relief--the confession he had been dreading was over; his father knew the worst. "If the governor only knew the world better," he said to himself, "he'd know that at every college the best fellows always skate along the edge of the thin ice. But he doesn't, and so he thinks he's disgraced." He lit