Mrs. Sandworth's easily diverted mind sped off into another channel. "Yes, how you do discuss. I'm going to look right at the clock every minute from now on, so's to be sure to remind you of that engagement at Judge Emery's office at half-past nine. I know what happens when you and Mr. Rankin get to talking." "I'll not stay long; Miss Emery has precedence." "Oh, don't mind me," said Lydia. "They won't--nor anything else," her aunt assured her. Rankin laughed at this characterization. The doctor did not seem to hear. He was brooding, and drumming on the table. From this reverie he was startled by the younger man's next statement. "I've got an apprentice," he announced. "Eh?" queried the doctor with unexpected sharpness. "The fifteen-year-old son of my neighbor, Luigi Carfarone, who works on the railroad. The boy's been bad--truant--street gamin--all that sort of thing, and his mother, who comes in to clean for me sometimes, has been awfully anxious about him. But it seems he has a passion for tools--maybe his ancestors were mediaeval craftsmen. Anyhow, he's been working for me lately, doing some of the simpler jobs, and really learning fast. And he's been so interested he's forgotten all his deviltry. So, yesterday, didn't he and his father and his mother and about a dozen littler brothers and sisters all come in solemn procession, dressed in their best, to dedicate him to me and my profession, as they grandly call it." "Oh, how perfectly lovely!" cried Lydia. The doctor resumed his drumming morosely. "Of course you know the end of that." "You mean he'll get tired of it, and take to robbing chicken-roosts again?" "Not much! He'll like it, and stick to it, and bring others, and you'll extend operations and build shops, and in no time you'll go the way of all the world--a big factory, running night and day; you on the keen jump every minute; dust an inch thick over your books and music; nerves taut; head humming with business schemes to beat your competitors; forget your wife most of the time except to give her money; making profits hand over fist; suborning legislators to wink at your getting special railroad rates for your stuff; can't remember how many children you have; grand success; notable example of what can be done by attention to business; nervous prostration at forty-five; Bright's disease at fifty; leave a million." Rankin burst into a great roar of boyish laughter at this prophetic flight. The doctor gnawed his lower lip, and looked at him without smiling. "I've got ten million blue devils on my back to-night," he said. "So I see--so I see." Rankin was still laughing, but as he continued to look into his old friend's face his own grew grave by reflection. "You don't believe all that?" "Oh, you won't mean to. It'll come gradually." He broke out suddenly, "Good Heavens, Rankin, give me a serious answer." "Answer!" The cabinet-maker's bewilderment was immense. "Have you asked me anything?"