"I thought so. 'Jove!' it is, too--and also Jupiter! You've always said you'd be ready when I was. Well, I'm ready." Richard was silent for a long minute, while his friend waited confidently. Then, "Good luck to you, old Lorry," he said. "It's mighty fine of you to remember our ancient vow to do that trick some day. And I'd like to go--you know that. But--I've a previous engagement." "Not with that fool store up in the backwoods? Can't make me believe that, you know." Richard's face was a study. "Believe it or not, it's a fact. That store is the joint property of Benson & Company. I'm the Company. I can't desert my partner just as we're getting the ground under our feet." "Well--I'll--be--hanged," drawled Lorimer, more heavily than ever, as was his custom when opposed, "if I see it. You go and help a fellow out with capital and set him on his feet. You save his pride, I suppose, by making yourself a partner. Fine, sporty thing to do. But you've done it. You've contributed the capital. Can't reasonably suppose you contribute anything else. If you don't mind my saying it, your--previous--training--" "Doesn't make me indispensable to the success of the business? Hardly, as yet. But for the very reason that I lack training, I've got to stay and get it." "Take lessons in shopkeeping from Hugh Benson?" "Exactly. And from Alf Carson. He's our manager." "Don't know him. But from the way you allude to him I judge he has the details at his fingers-ends. That's all right. Leave--him--on--the--job." "I will--and stay myself." Richard's eyes were straight ahead, as the eyes of a man must be whose powerful car is running at high speed along a none too smoothly surfaced portion of state road. Therefore the glances of the two young men could not meet. But Lorimer's eyes could silently scan the well-cut profile presented to his view against the green of the fields beyond. "Never observed," said he, with a peculiar inflection, "just how--rock-like--that chin of yours is, Rich. Reminds me of your grandfather's, for fair." "Glad to hear it." "You know," pursued Lorimer presently, "you gave me your promise, once, that you'd be with me on this cruise, whenever it came off. That's where the chin ought to come in. Man of your word, you know, and all that." "I'm mighty sorry, my dear fellow. Let's not talk about it." And clearly he was sorry. It had been a pleasant plan, and he had not forgotten the circumstances of the laughing yet serious pledge the two had given each other one evening less than two years ago. They kept on their way with a change of conversation, and at the rate of speed which Richard maintained were running into Eastman before they were half done with asking each other questions concerning the months during which they had seldom met. "This the busy mart?" queried Lorimer, as the car came to a standstill before the corner store. "Well, beside Kendrick & Company's massive edifices of stone and marble--"