“You remember that I kept my interest there and Tom says I can be of use to him. I am of no use here--and never have been.” “In other words, you prefer Walsh to me as an ally. Very well, I might have expected it. This is the last irony of my parenthood and it is quite fitting; quite in keeping.” In the silence following the announcement Wayne’s heart had been tenderer toward his father than in many a day. It was not so easy after all to leave him; at a word he might have relented; but the swords of resentment unsheathed with a sharp clatter and his spirit declared war. “What’s quite fitting; what’s in keeping?” he demanded. “Your desertion, your apostasy. After these years of humiliation you have brought me, you throw me off as lightly as though you were a clerk who had worked here a week and left to take another job. But it’s what I deserve for my forbearance. It’s too bad you didn’t go sooner. But it’s quite characteristic that you should wait till there was a chance of your being of some service to me, as age comes on and a son’s right arm would mean much--you wait for a strategic moment and then fire your last volley and leave. No servant ever served me so ill. But I deserve it; go to Walsh; very likely you and he will find yourselves well suited to each other.” “Walsh did your work for you for twenty years; it’s rather base of you to visit your contempt on him now. If you don’t know it, every man in Pittsburg knows what Tom Walsh was to you--he was your brains.” Colonel Craighill jumped to his feet, the blood suffusing his face. “You ungrateful dog--the reason I dispensed with Walsh was that he’s crooked--he’s a man of no principles, he’s a rascal!” “But it took you twenty years to find it out--twenty years of faithful service and you gave a farewell dinner to a rascal, _your_ rascal, and bade him God-speed.” “I didn’t know then what he was!” roared Colonel Craighill, “but I have learned since. He lied about the mercantile company to get it away from me. He falsified the statements and I sold to him on an inventory he made himself. No doubt you were in collusion with him and now you’re to be paid for robbing your father. It’s all of a piece; it’s what I have trained you for and my reward for shielding you and bearing with you all these years.”