Judge Cahill looked quickly around. “That’s right! that’s right, my boy!” he said heartily, and with a touch of surprise in his voice. “You have always been what I wished--not very studious, perhaps”--he laughed indulgently, “but you always stood fairly well at the University, and although you have doubtless done a great many things of which I know nothing and of which I do not wish to know,” he added quickly and decidedly, “still I believe you have lived a life which you have no need to be ashamed of. I know that you are honest, and truthful, and straight, and that I can trust you, and that the responsibilities which you are to assume will make you even more upright and ‘square,’ if possible.” He glanced admiringly and affectionately at the athletic young figure sitting easily before him, at the well-shaped head and pleasant blue eyes and finely-cut mouth of the young man. “You might have been so different,” went on the older man, musingly, and with a certain whimsicality. “You might never have been willing to go through the University; or worse still, you might never have been able to get through; or you might have made debts that even I would not have felt willing or able to pay; or you might have been unwilling to supplement your college education with the years of travel which I thought necessary; or you might have had so decided a dislike for the law that it would have been impossible for me to take you in the firm as I am now so delighted, so proud to do; or you might have married too soon and ruined your life. In short, you might have been a disappointment--and you are not.” The young man shifted his position a little, and tumbled the burnt end of his cigar into the ash-tray at his elbow. “You are very kind, sir,” he repeated. “I am not quite equal to telling you just how kind you seem to me, and how proud I am to be the junior member of the firm. I feel a legal enthusiasm kindling within me which I am sure will land me on the Supreme Bench some day!” And then he went on more seriously, and with an anxious note in his voice. “But I hope you are not deceiving yourself about me, sir. If you remember, you _did_ have to pay debts for me at the University, and there was one time when I thought active measures would be taken to prevent my finishing my course even if I had been quite inclined to continue, as indeed I was; and I am not very clever, and shall never be at the head of my profession as you are, sir!” Judge Cahill leaned back and laughed easily. “I had quite forgotten those little incidents, Dana!” he said, “and do you know, it seems to me that we are unusually complimentary and effusive to each other to-night. I am congratulating myself on having such a son, and you on having me for your father! Well--it is not a bad idea. A little more demonstration in our family will not hurt anything.” He paused slightly, and then added: “Your mother was not very demonstrative.”