“I don’t want ’em. The Colonel wants ’em. He told me to get ’em but I didn’t know there was any great rush about it. The Colonel’s friends in New York, that he got into the Sand Creek Company, asked him to pick up those shares; their control is by a narrow margin, and they wanted to fortify themselves. They’d looked to the Colonel to take care of this little bunch. Does he know you’ve got ’em?” “Oh, no; not on your life! After jumping me for buying them? My dear Tom Walsh, there _are_ moments when the worm will turn!” This was the first occasion on which Wayne had ever spoken of his father to Walsh except in terms of respect, and Walsh was perfectly aware of it. “If I were you I’d turn those shares over to the Colonel.” “If it’s anything to you--if you’re going to be criticized for failing to get them, I’ll give them to him--or I’ll sell them to you.” “No, you don’t have to worry about me, my boy; I can take care of myself, but I don’t want you to feel that way toward your father. It ain’t healthy; it ain’t right.” “Please don’t do that, Tom. My head aches, and you’re too good a fellow to preach. I didn’t know those shares were so valuable; it was just a piece of fool luck that I got them. I suppose they thought letting me have them was the same as passing them over to father.” “That’s the way it ought to be.” “But, dear old Tom,” and he laid his hand on Walsh’s thick knee, “dear old Tom, it isn’t, it isn’t, it ain’t!” CHAPTER V A CHILD OF THE IRON CITY Wayne and his father met the next morning at breakfast, a function at which, when Wayne appeared, the senior Craighill discussed the day’s news in his large way as a student of affairs. This morning he had brought the newspapers to the table and they were piled by his plate. “I sent out notice of my engagement to all the papers last night. I suppose it was to be expected that they would treat the matter sensationally. They have spared nothing.” Colonel Craighill deplored the pernicious tendencies of the American press generally and of the local newspapers particularly. They made light work of reputations, he declared; they were bitterly partisan in politics; and Colonel Craighill believed thoroughly that in an independent and courageous press lay the hope of the Republic. He pushed the papers toward his son with the tips of his fingers. “They insisted on my portrait and had to have Miss Allen’s also. If I had refused they would probably have substituted something even worse than you see there. A picture like that is bound to awaken prejudice. It’s an outrage on public decency!” he ended indignantly.