Fessenden interrupted him with a sharp exclamation. “He, too, was in the plot! You chose your tools well. I never received a hint.” “Morris knew all. It is quite true, however, that he was the son of an old college friend, suddenly impoverished, and that it was necessary for him to live in a peculiar atmosphere. He was bent upon California, but I offered him five thousand a year to live at the Nettlebecks’ and prepare you for college; also twenty-five thousand dollars the day you entered. He did not hesitate; moreover, I gave him carte blanche at the best bookshops of New York and Boston, and offered to send to Europe for anything which was not imported through the regular channels--” “In other words, you bought him body and soul! Well, he was not much of a man, anyhow. And no wonder he was so well fitted to impress me with the value of money!” “I have bought bigger men than Morris,” said Mr. Abbott dryly. “I own twenty-eight members of Congress, seven of the most imposing figure-heads of the British aristocracy, one sovereign, and several minor presidents. But to proceed. So far, I have given you only my paternal reasons for your bringing-up. I will say little now of what the separation meant to me. I had never been too busy to play with you, had haunted the nursery or had you brought down here during every hour I could snatch for home. As I saw you improve up there in the mountains, from a charming but sickly baby into such a sturdy, bright, manly little chap, it took all the will I possessed to leave you behind me when I returned. At last the effort cost too much, and I dreaded failure. I took the drastic course and saw you no more. The day you left New York for the West I stole a glimpse of you at the station. Since then I have not seen you until to-day. During this last year others have shared my secret besides Morris and Nettlebeck--the president of your university and the close personal friends whom you know only as prominent men who agreed to lecture on the subjects which happened to absorb you. They were tremendously interested in my experiment, and, as they are men who owe their success in life as much to their talent for keeping their mouths shut as to anything else, I had no fear that they would betray me. As for the president, of course I knew I could trust him fully. But enough of this personal side. I had another object in preserving you from the pitfalls, the physically and mentally debilitating influences of wealth, which I should have pursued had I been twenty times less a father. You were my only son, you must carry on the traditions of our house, become the custodian of millions, of the vast power they entailed--”