“You’ve got a sort of pull with a certain set of young addlepates here, because you live in New York and get your name in the papers, and because you’ve a dollar allowance to every penny of theirs: I want you to use that pull. I want you should jump right in and begin working for me. Why, you ought to round up a hundred votes in the Pompton Club alone, to say nothing of the youngsters on the fringe outside, who’ll be tickled to death at having a feller of your means and position notice ’em. Yes, you can be a whole lot of help to me this next few weeks. Take off your coat and wade in! And when we win——” “Hold on a moment, Dad!” interrupted Gerald, whose lengthening face had passed unnoted by the excited elder man. “Hold on, please. You mean you want me to work for you in the campaign for Governor?” “Jerry, you’ll get almost human one of these days if you let your intelligence take flights like that. Yes, I——” “Because,” pursued Gerald, who was far too accustomed to this form of sarcasm from his father to allow it to ruffle him, “because I can’t.” “You—you—_what_?” grunted Caleb, incredulously. “I can’t stay here in Granite all that time. I—I must get back to New York this week. I’ve important business there.” “Well, I’ll be—” gasped Conover, finding his voice at last, and with it the grim satire he loved to lavish on this son, so unlike himself. “Business, eh? ‘Important business!’ Some restaurant waiter you’ve got an appointment to thrash at 2.45 A.M. on Tuesday, or a hotel window you’ve made a date to drive through in a hansom? From all I’ve read or heard of your life there, those were the two most important pieces of business you ever transacted in New York. And it was _my_ money paid the fines both times. No, no, Sonny, your ‘important business’ will keep, I guess, till after November. Anyhow, in the meantime you’ll stay right here and help Papa. See? Otherwise you’ll go to New York on foot, and have the pleasure of living on what the three-ball specialists will give you for your hardware. No work, no pennies, Jerry. Understand that? Now go and think it over. Papa’s too busy to play with little boys to-day.” To Caleb’s secret delight he saw he had at last roused a spark of spirit in the lad. “My business in New York,” retorted Gerald hotly, “is not with waiters or hotels. It is with my wife.” Caleb sat down very hard. “Your—your—” he sputtered apoplectically. “My wife,” returned the youth, a sheepish pride in look and words. “It was that I came up here to speak to you about this morning. You were so busy yesterday when I got to town that——” [Illustration: “Are you going to tell me about this thing, or have I got to shake it out of you?” Page 61.] “Jerry, you ass! Are you crazy or only drunk?” “Father,” protested Gerald with a petulance that only half hid his growing nervousness, “I do wish you’d call me ‘Gerald,’ and drop that wretched nickname. If——”