Kellogg regarded him sombrely for a moment, then in silence returned his attention to his plate; and in silence, for the most part, the remainder of the dinner was served and eaten. Duncan himself had certainly enough to occupy his mind, while Kellogg had altogether forgotten his own cause for rejoicing in his concern for the fortunes of his friend. He was entirely of the opinion that something would have to be done for Nat, with or without his consent; and he sounded the profoundest depths of romantic impossibilities in his attempts to discover some employment suited to Duncan's interesting but impracticable assortment of faculties and qualifications, natural and acquired. But nothing presented itself as feasible in view of the fact that employment which would prove immediately remunerative was required. And by the time that Robbins, clearing the board, left them alone with coffee and cigars and cigarettes, Kellogg was fain to confess failure--though the confession was a very private one, confined to himself only. "Nat," he said suddenly, rousing that young man out of the dreariest of meditations, "what under the sun _can_ you do?" "Me? I don't know. Why bother your silly old head about that? I'll make out somehow." "But surely there's something you'd rather do than anything else." "My dear sir," Duncan told him impressively, "the only walk of life in which I am fitted to shine is that of the idle son of a rich and foolish father. Since I lost that job I've not been worth my salt." "That's piffle. There isn't a man living who hasn't some talent or other, some sort of an ability concealed about his person." "You can search me," Duncan volunteered gloomily. His unresponsiveness irritated Kellogg; he thought a while, then delivered himself of a didactic conclusion: "The trouble with you is you were brought up all wrong." "Well, I've been brought down all right. Besides, that's a platitude in my case." "Let's see: I've know you--er--nine years." "Is it that long?" Duncan looked up from a gloomy inspection of the interior of his demitasse, displaying his first gleam of interest in this analysis of his character. "You are a long-suffering old duffer. Any man who'd stand for me for nine years--" "That'll be all of that," Kellogg cut in sharply. "I was going on to say that you can't room with a man for four terms at college and then know him, off and on, for five years more, pretty intimately, without forming a pretty clear estimate of what he's worth in your own mind." "And I don't mind telling you, Harry, I think you're the best little business man as well as the finest sort of an all-round good-fellow on this continent." "Thanks awfully. I presume that's why you're determined to throw me down just at the time you need me most.... What I was trying to get at is the fact that I've never doubted your ultimate success for an instant." "You'd be a mighty lonesome minority in a congress of my employers, Harry."