“Pray!” The little magnate flushed. “Dr. Frauenthal,” he began, with chilling dignity, “I asked--” “And I answered. Have your millions deafened you? Pray! Pray to whatever other god you may have that the lady prove to be neither a prima donna nor a novelist. A temperamental daughter-in-law is really worse than you deserve, for all the money they say you have made. There are check-book gods and stock-ticker gods; and there is also God. I'd pray to Him if I were you. Good day, sir!” The footman had opened the door, and the great specialist, without another look at the railroad man, got out and walked into his house. “Where to, sir?” asked the footman. Mr. Merriwether, however, was vexed to think that in relieving his anxiety over Tom's sanity Frauenthal had replaced it with a dread question--Why had not Tom told his father about her? The boy must be either crazy or in love. If he was not crazy, who in blazes was she? What was she? Why was she? All this angered him. He muttered aloud: “Hell!” “Yes, sir--very good, sir,” said the footman, from force of habit. Then he trembled; but his master had not heard him.' The footman breathed deeply and said, tremulously, “B-beg p-pardon, sir?” “Nearest Subway station!” said E. H. Merriwether. . He was in a hurry to reach his office, not because he had important business to transact there, but because somehow he always thought best in his own chair before his own desk in his own office. There he was an autocrat, and there he could think autocratically and issue commands that were obeyed. He had much thinking to do--Tom was concerned, his son Tom; and Tom's future. And it was now clear that T. T. Merriwether's future was also the future of E. H. Merriwether! Why had this thing come on him? Talk about your thunderbolts out of a clear sky--this love-affair was a million times worse! It was mysterious--and it is well known in Wall Street that a mystery is worse than nitroglycerine--infinitely more dangerous. What was this love-affair? How far had it gone? Just where was the dynamite stored? Who was she? Why did not Tom say something? Why could not Tom have fallen in love safely? Why could he not have married a good girl who would help him and help E. H. Merriwether help both by minding her own business--to wit, a few little male Merriwethers? It was time Tom became his father's successor-to-be. E. H. Merriwether had loved to do his own work his own way all his life. It was his pleasure. But the work suddenly took on an aspect of far greater importance than the worker. The work was the work of the Merriwethers--not of one Merriwether; not even of the great E. H., but of all the Merriwethers, living and to be. Tom must be trained not only to be the son of a Merriwether, but to be himself a Merriwether. And therefore E. H. must cease to be a railroad expert toward Tom; he must become Tom's father, the trainer of a successor--flesh and blood the same; the fortune the same.