“I can’t see that Albert isn’t playing fair. It must be pretty nearly as he says--that he has put as much money in the farm as it was worth when he took it. It’s true that father’s will leaves it to him outright--and that wasn’t quite as Albert gave us to understand it should be--but Albert pledges us that our rights in it shall be respected, and it seems to me that that is better than an acknowledged interest in a bankrupt farm would be, which we hadn’t the capital to work, and which was worthless without it.” “Perhaps you are right.” John paused for a moment, then began again in a graver tone: “There’s something else. How are you getting on on the _Chronicle?_” “Oh, well enough; I get through my work without anybody’s finding fault. I suppose that is the best test. A fellow can’t do any more.” “That is where you are wrong. ‘A fellow’ can do a great deal more. And when you went there I, for one, expected you were going to do a deuced sight more. You have been there now--let’s see--thirteen months. You are doing what you did when you went there--sawing up miscellany, boiling down news notes, grinding out a lot of departments which the office boy might do, if his own work weren’t more important. In a word you’ve just gone on to the threshold, and you’ve screwed yourself down to the floor there--and from all I hear you are likely to stay there all your life, while other fellows climb over your head to get into the real places.” “From all you _hear?_ What do you mean by that--who’s been telling you about me?” “That you shan’t know, my boy. It is enough that I _have_ heard. You haven’t fulfilled your promise. I thought you had the makings of a big man in you; I believed that all you needed was the chance, and you would rise. You were given the chance--put right in on the ground floor, and there you are, just where you were put. You haven’t risen worth a cent.” “What do you expect a fellow to do? Get to be editor-in-chief in thirteen months? What could I do that I haven’t done? There have been no vacancies, so no one has climbed over my head. I’ve done the work I was set to do--and done it well, too. What more can you ask?” Seth spoke in an aggrieved tone, for this attack seemed as unjust as it had been unexpected. John replied, “Now keep cool, youngster! Nobody expected you to get to be editor-in-chief in thirteen months, so don’t talk nonsense. And I am not blaming you for not getting promotion, when there have been no vacancies. What I do mean, if you want to know, is that you have failed to make a good impression. You are not in the line of promotion. Workman doesn’t say to himself when he thinks of you ‘There’s a smart, steady, capable young man on whom we can count, who’s able to go as high as we are able to put him.’ No! instead of that he says--but no, never mind. I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”