Johnathan had been elected president and treasurer, Charley Newton who had left an office job at the process works to become the Forge bookkeeper (and learn how to thwart Johnathan making entries in his books and getting them awry), had been elected vice-president. Joe Partridge, who had arisen to the prominence of foreman, was clerk of the corporation, though Lawyer Bob Hentley did the secretarial work and all Joel had to do was sign on the dotted line. Nathan, not being of age, could not be an officer. His large capacity was “General Superintendent.” As money flowed into the firm’s coffers, the prospects of the Forge family started looking up. Johnathan began buying suits of clothes, evolved a propensity for bat neckties and learned to smoke cigars. He was less conscientious about his attendance at church and took long trips off “to keep the trade in line.” Invariably he found, however, that his son had contrived to do this by letter. When his “trade” began discussing deals and discounts of which Johnathan had never heard, it made him feel rather foolish and always angry. He returned grimly determined that he was going to run his own business or know the reason why. But before the first day was ended, he had become so engrossed in some new office contrivance or new set of forms, that he forgot larger problems,—or some quarrel with his boy sent him off to walk the streets for hours and pity himself. The matter of running his own business sagged until it was time for another venture at “keeping the trade in line.” The Forges left the Spring Street house and bought the old Longstreet residence on Vermont Avenue. Whereupon Mrs. Forge and Edith began to “put on style” and rise to the occasion generally. The womenfolk of a prominent manufacturer had to keep up appearances. Charge accounts were opened at the leading stores and for the first time in her mortal existence Mrs. Forge’s appetite for chocolate caramels was satiated,—the kind with nuts in them. IV Nathan was to become twenty-one on the second day of December. I knew, as his confidant, that the original plan was a wedding between Carol and himself on the ensuing Christmas. But as that late summer and autumn dragged along toward the first frosts, I grew increasingly worried. The cause of my perturbation was Carol’s correspondence. The first letters, written in the initial pangs of separation, had come to hand twice a week,—or as often as Nat’s reply allowed. From September to the first week in November, no letter whatever came for Nat. Then an epistle arrived which the boy tore open and read with an avidity that was piteous. She had been ill. She would write at greater length when she felt better.