“Well, I told Dan for one thing that he was not acting wisely in turning down the chance I gave him. I told him there was a difference between begging and receiving. That it sometimes was more gracious to receive than it was to give.” “I can’t understand you, John,” said Mrs. Borden a little impatiently. “One would think to hear you that it was Dan conferring the favor and not you or Walter.” “That is exactly what I did tell him,” said Mr. Borden quietly. “You did?” “I did. I told him that I knew as well as he that Walter was an only child and spoiled by his mother――――” “I don’t do any more for him than you do, John,” protested Mrs. Borden. “I know that. We both do too much. The boy would be better off if he did more for himself, but I haven’t the strength of character to do what I know I ought to do. I didn’t have, when I was a boy, a fraction of what Walter has. My father made me work for almost everything I had. I didn’t like it then, but he was a wiser as well as a better man than I am.” “There couldn’t be a more generous man than you, John.” “Couldn’t there?” laughed Mr. Borden. “Well, I told Dan that I knew as well as he did that Walter is conceited and selfish――he thinks a good deal more of himself than of anyone else――――” “You didn’t tell him that!” “I most certainly did. I told him Walter needed some things that Dan had――――” “What, for example?” “Oh, Walter doesn’t work, he’s too easily turned aside, he gives up when he ought to hang on, he is vain as a peacock, and he hasn’t the remotest idea of the existence of anyone besides himself on this planet.” “You didn’t say that about your own boy!” “Not in those words, but Dan knew what I meant. Then I told him that he could help Walter, and I felt that if he should get my boy into a steadier way of working I’d be glad to pay him a good deal more than the amount his year at the Tait School will cost me. I put it so strongly that at last Dan agreed to try it a year. If I should not be satisfied then he is to leave the school and call off the bargain and he even suggested that he would pay back what I might have advanced――――” “He couldn’t pay it. He hasn’t any money.” “Not just now. He’ll have plenty later. Likewise, he struck out fifteen men in the Benson game!” Mr. Borden added laughingly as he arose. “Oh, it’s Walter’s chance as well as Dan’s, but I don’t want you to tell Walter what I have just now told you. It might spoil my plan.” “I think Walter is a good boy. I can’t understand you when you find so much fault with your own flesh and blood.” “Mother,” said Mr. Borden softly, “sometimes it costs one more to be true than it does to say or do pleasing things. Ever think of that?” “Of course I have, but I don’t see what that has to do with Walter.” “Trust me――you will see it and more clearly than I do now.”