“No!” cried Tommy, so peremptorily that he instantly felt compelled to soften the refusal. “I'd rather not, father. I'll see him again if he'll let me.” “He'll have to let you,” said Mr. Leigh. He nodded to himself fully a dozen times, in the same curious way that to Tommy always seemed so unpleasantly senile. “Yes! Yes!” “Rivington thinks”--and Tommy was conscious of a desire to soothe his father--“that the colonel will even help me to place the entire two thousand shares among friends.” “It is I who should help you, Thomas. Your mother would have insisted upon it.” Mr. Leigh's lips were pressed together grimly, an expression that Tommy not only remembered, but associated poignantly with his own life's great tragedy. But he said, bravely: “Father, I must work out my problems myself.” Mr. Leigh shook his head decidedly. “You are not qualified to carry this to success unaided, Thomas. I am not wiser than you, my son, but older.” “Mr. Thompson foresaw my failure. He has provided for it. He said--” “No, no!” interrupted Mr. Leigh, so excitedly that his voice rose shrilly. “You must not fail! You must not fail!” “Mr. Thompson told me it would not hurt my prospects--” “You must not fail!” repeated Mr. Leigh, doggedly. “It is my duty to help you. I am the best judge of your needs. I am your father.” Tommy was on the verge of denial. All that his father had come to mean to him, all that had gone before, all that the future meant to him, his doubts and his fears and his hopes--all had something to say to Tommy. And the confusion made him temporize. “I appreciate how you feel, dad; but please don't do anything until I've tried some of my other friends, will you?” “The sooner it is settled, the better,” said Mr. Leigh, obstinately. “Thomas, bear in mind that you are not a business man. You don't understand that money is never to be had merely for the asking. Your problem is to get the money as quickly as possible.” Mr. Leigh was frowning, full of a feverish impatience that alarmed Tommy. To him his father had always been a slave of routine and method, almost an automaton. Evidently the old man's nerves were overwrought, and there was no telling the reason. But his desire to help his son was prompted by love and loyalty to the living and the dead. Tommy approached his father and threw an arm about the old shoulders. “Dad,” he spoke coaxingly, “you don't know what it means to me to do this thing alone. I want to try hard before I call for help. If I succeed alone, don't you see how I'll feel?” The old man did not reply. Presently Tommy felt him draw in his breath; then Mr. Leigh nodded slowly. “Very well, Thomas,” he said, in his old voice, steady, emotionless, the voice a ledger would use if it could speak. “Thanks, dad. I'll go and dress now. I'm dining at the Willetts'.” And Tommy left his father.