“Oh, you are mighty considerate, all at once,” retorted Seth, angrily. “Go on! Say what you were going to say! What is it that Workman says, since you’ve been spying on me behind my back?” “Now you are talking like a fool,” said the elder brother, keeping his temper. “I haven’t been spying on you. I have only been commenting on facts which have come to my knowledge without seeking and which were brought to me by one who has your interests at heart. I have only been talking to you as I ought to talk, with the sole idea of benefiting you, helping you. If you don’t want to hear me, why I can shut up.” Seth did not reply for a minute or so; then he growled moodily: “Go ahead! Let’s hear it all.” “The ‘all’ can be said in a few words. You have been wasting your time. I grant that you have done your work well enough to escape blame--but what credit is there in that? a million mechanics do that every day. Instead of improving yourself, elevating and polishing yourself, by good reading, by studying the art of writing, above all by choosing your associates among men who are your superiors, and from whom you can learn, you have settled down in a Dutch beer saloon, making associates out of the commonest people in town, and having for your particular chum that rattle-headed loafer Tom Watts. Do you suppose Mr. Workman doesn’t know this? Do you suppose he likes it, or that it encourages him to hope for your future?” Seth was silent longer than ever, this time. When he spoke it was to utter something which he instantly regretted: “I haven’t been able to gather from your old friends that you were altogether a bigot, yourself, on the subject of beer, when you were my age.” Fortunately John did not get angry; Seth honestly admired and envied his elder brother’s good temper as he heard the reply: “That’s neither here nor there. Perhaps I did a good many things that I want you to avoid. Besides, there was nothing in me. I am good enough as far as I go, but if I had worked on a daily paper till my teeth all fell out, I should never have got any higher than I was. With you it is different; you can go up to the head of the class if you are a mind to. But the beer saloon isn’t the way--and Tom Watts isn’t the guide.” “He is the only friend I have got. What was I to do? It is easy enough to talk, John, about my knowing good people and all that, but _how?_ That is the question? It isn’t fair to blame me as you do. All the men like Workman and Samboye--I suppose you mean them--hold themselves miles above me. Do you suppose I’ve ever seen the inside of their houses or of their club? Not I! You dump a young countryman in a strange city, new at his work, without knowing a solitary soul--and then you complain because he gets lonesome, and makes friends with the only people who show any disposition to be friendly with him. Do you call that fair play?”