David’s laugh was entirely care free. “That was the way you talked when I went to college, Dad, and again, when I left for Florida. I haven’t noticed that I’m particularly raw, compared with other men.” “It isn’t that,” the father hastened to say, “it’s just that, up to to-day, you’ve never had to shoulder a man’s load. Perhaps I am foolishly apprehensive, but the way in which you spoke just now of our obligation--your obligation--to Eben Grillage.... I don’t know how to express it, but it made me feel as I have sometimes felt before; that if anything which you might conceive to be a duty were pushing you, you’d shut your eyes and go to any length.” David laughed and shook his head. “Some day, Dad, you’ll wake up and find that I’m a man grown; or I hope you will. Just the same, we do owe Mr. Grillage a lot more than we can ever pay, and if it ever comes in my way to chop the debt down a bit, you may be sure I’ll sharpen my axe. Now, if you are not too wretchedly tired and worn out, suppose we turn in and make our plans before we sleep. I told Lucille that we’d most likely be late coming home and she won’t be sitting up for us. To-morrow morning you’re going to turn the winding up of this thing over to me and let me save what I can. That is what Mr. Grillage said I must do, and it is what I mean to do.” Deep into the night father and son sat together in the private room in the rear, poring over the books and bank paper and setting things in order for the speedy beaching of the outworn business ship. But it was not until after they had left the bank and were walking home that David won his final point. “You shall do as you think best, David,” the father conceded, closing an argument which had begun at the very outset of the planning. “If it were left to me, I should probably be too easy with the bank’s debtors, as I’ve always been. You may retain Oswald, if you think best; only don’t let him be too hard on the borrowers who are in difficulties.”