The elder Mr. Cornthwaite looked undecided whether to frown or to laugh at this tirade, which had at least the merit of being uttered in all sincerity by the very person who could least afford to utter it. He compromised by giving breath to a little sigh. “It’s very disheartening to me to hear you say so, Chris, when it has been the aim of my life to bring you up to carry on and build up the business I have given my life to,” he said. Christian Cornthwaite’s face was not an expressive one. He was extraordinarily unlike his father in almost every way, having prominent blue eyes, instead of his father’s piercing black ones, a fair complexion, while his father’s was dark, a figure shorter, broader, and less upright, and an easy, happy-go-lucky walk and manner, as different as possible from the erect, military bearing of the head of the firm. What little expression he could throw into his big blue eyes he threw into them now, as he pulled his long, ragged, tawny moustache and echoed his father’s sigh. “Well, isn’t it disheartening for me too, sir,” protested he good-humoredly, “to hear you constantly threatening to put me on bread and water for the rest of my life if I don’t settle down in this beastly hole and try to love it?” “It ought to be natural to you to love what has brought you up in every comfort, educated you like a prince, and made of you----” Josiah Cornthwaite paused, and a twinkle came into his black eyes. “Made of you,” he went on thoughtfully, “a selfish, idle vagabond, with only wit enough to waste the money his father has made.” “Thank you, sir,” said Chris, quite cheerfully. “If that’s the best the works have done for me, why should I love them?” At that moment young Elshaw passed before his eyes again, and recalled Christian’s attention to a subject which would, he shrewdly thought, divert the current of his father’s thoughts from his own deficiencies. “I wonder, sir,” he said, “that you don’t put Bram Elshaw into the office. He’s fit for something better than this sort of thing.” And he waved his hand in the direction of the group in the middle of which stood Elshaw, rod in hand, with his lean, earnest face intent on his work. Josiah Cornthwaite’s eyes rested on the young man. Bram was a little above the middle height, thin, sallow, with shoulders somewhat inclined to be narrow and sloping, but with a face which commanded attention. He had short, mouse-colored hair, high cheek bones, a short nose, a straight mouth, and a very long straight chin; altogether an assemblage of features which promised little in the way of attractiveness. And yet attractive his face certainly was. Intelligence, strength of character, good humor, these were the qualities which even a casual observer could read in the countenance of Bram Elshaw.