"Well, if you need to look any more, then your eyes ain't right. That's my say. I ain't askin' you to go West. I don't expect that!" Percival brightened. "But I am tryin' to nag you into doin' something here. People can say what they want to about you," he continued, stubbornly, as one who confesses the most arrant bigotry, "but I know you _have_ got some brains, some ability--I really believe you got a whole lot--and you got the means to take your place right at the top. You can head 'em all in this country or any other. Now what you ought to do, you ought to take your place in the world of finance--put your mind on it night and day--swing out--get action--and set the ball to rolling. Your pa was a big man in the West, and there ain't any reason as I can see of why you can't be just as big a man in proportion here. People can talk all they want to about your bein' just a dub--I won't believe 'em. And there's London. You ain't been ambitious enough. Get a down-hill pull on New York, and then branch out. Be a man of affairs like your pa, and like that fellow Shepler. Let's _be_ somebody. If Montana City was too small fur us, that's no reason why New York should be too big." Percival had walked the floor in deep attention to the old man's words. "You've got me right, Uncle Peter," he said at last. "And you're right about what I ought to do. I've often thought I'd go into some of these big operations here. But for one thing I was afraid of what you'd say. And then, I didn't know the game very well. But I see I ought to do something. You're dead right." "And we need more money, too," urged the old man. "I was reading a piece the other day about the big fortunes in New York. Why, we ain't one, two, three, with the dinky little twelve or thirteen millions we could swing. You don't want to be a piker, do you? If you go in the game at all, play her open and high. Make 'em take the ceiling off. You can just as well get into the hundred million class as not, and I know it. They needn't talk to _me_--I know you _have_ got some brains. If you was to go in now it would keep you straight and busy, and take you out of this pin-head class that only spends their pa's money." "You're all right, Uncle Peter! I certainly did need you to come along right now and set me straight. You founded the fortune, pa trebled it, and now I'll get to work and roll it up like a big snowball." "That's the talk. Get into the hundred million class, and show these wise folks you got something in you besides hot air, like the sayin' is. _Then_ they won't always be askin' who your pa was--they'll be wantin' to know who you are, by Gripes! Then you can have the biggest steam yacht afloat, two or three of 'em, and the best house in New York, and palaces over in England; and Pish'll be able to hold up her head in company over there. You can finance _that_ proposition right up to the nines." "By Jove! but you're right. You're a wonder, Uncle Peter. And that reminds me--"