“You have,” said Michael, dropping his sorrowing eyes slowly, and taking out the folded check from his pocket. “You have the right to ask it, but I have no right to do what you ask. I have begun the work, and it would not be right to stop it. Indeed, I couldn’t. If you knew what it means to those fellows—but I cannot keep this if you feel that way! I was going to use it for the work—but now—” Michael’s pauses were eloquent. Endicott was deeply touched but he would not show it. He was used to having his own way, and it irritated, while it pleased him in a way, to have Michael so determined. As Michael stopped talking he laid the check sadly on the desk. “Nonsense!” said Endicott irritably, “this has nothing to do with the check. That was your birthday present. Use it as you like. What I have given I have given and I won’t take back even if I have nothing more to do with you from this time forth. I have no objection to your giving away as much money as you can spare to benevolent institutions, but I say that I do object to your wasting your time and your reputation in such low places. It will injure you eventually, it can’t help it. I want you to take your evenings for society and for lectures and concerts—” “I will go to the concerts and lectures gladly,” said Michael gravely. “I can see they will be fine for me, and I thank you very much for the opportunity, but that will not hinder my work. It begins always rather late in the evening, and there are other times—” “You’ve no business to be staying out in places like that after the hour of closing of decent places of amusement.” Michael refrained from saying that he had several times noticed society ladies returning from balls and entertainments when he was on his way home. “I simply can’t have it if I’m to stand back of you.” “I’m, sorry,” said Michael. “You won’t ever know how sorry I am. It was so good to know that I had somebody who cared a little for me. I shall miss it very much. It has been almost like having a real father. Do you mean that you will have to give up the—fatherliness?” Endicott’s voice shook with mingled emotions. It couldn’t be that this young upstart who professed to be so grateful and for whom he had done so much would actually for the sake of a few wretched beings and a sentimental feeling that he belonged in the slums and ought to do something for them, run the risk of angering him effectually. It could not be! “It means that I shall not do any of the things I had planned to do for you, if you persist in refusing my most reasonable request. Listen, young man—” Michael noticed with keen pain that he had dropped the customary “son” from his conversation, and it gave him a queer choky sensation of having been cut off from the earth.