The lawyer smiled complacently: “I thought that letter would fetch him. Of course, my boy, the harshness of the letter was for effect on him, not on you. It simply gave you a chance to say you had _got_ to come.” Seth did not find himself wholly clear on this point, but he nodded assent. Albert looked at him, and seemed a trifle annoyed at having the conversation all to himself, but he went on after a moment’s pause, speaking now with good humored gravity: “First of all, I ought to tell you how proud I have been of your fine progress on the _Chronicle_. I doubt if there is another young man of your age in the State who has done so much climbing in so short a time. I take a real satisfaction in thinking that you are my brother. I can’t tell you how often I say to myself: ‘Albert Fairchild, the best thing you ever did in your life, or ever will do, was to give that boy a chance.’” This was gall and wormwood to the young man. He had almost succeeded in regaining the composure so abruptly scattered by Albert’s unexpected arrival. The fluttering agitation came back now, and brought with it a painful sense of shame and self-reproach as Albert’s words recalled the scene which his entrance had interrupted. Seth did not look his brother in the face, but murmured some commonplace of gratitude. He was glad that there was a red shade on the lamp; it might conceal his flush of humiliation. Albert went on: “But you were not invited here so peremptorily just to hear this. Brotherly pride and affection are things that don’t need words--that can be taken for granted--are they not?” Seth tried to smile, and said, “Yes, of course they are.” “Well, youngster, I am taking them for granted in your case. Mind, as I said in my letter, I am not saying a word about gratitude. I don’t want the thing to be put on that footing at all. Brothers ought to be able to help each other, and all that, without lugging in the question of gratitude. I am talking to you as one man should to another who bears the same name, and was of the same mother. By George! poetry, isn’t it? Well, the point is this. The time has come when you can help me, help me immensely. I am not in this fight for myself alone. Personally I care very little about going to Congress. But I have got the family to consider, and I am in a position now where I can make a ten-strike for it. A good deal of it I have created myself. These countrymen up here in Dearborn County fancy they are shrewd politicians, but it has taken me, almost a novice in politics, less than two years to get the whole machinery right under my thumb. It’s in the blood, I tell you! There wasn’t another manager in this whole section that could hold a candle to the old Senator, in his day,--and if he could keep track of things now I imagine he’d admit that his grandson was no slouch.”