"Yes. But you have responsibilities as my son, and pray do not imagine that I am blind to them. I have made the money." He paused a moment, for he was looking back along the vista of the years and recalling the succession of shrewd undertakings by which his property had grown from a few thousand dollars to imposing wealth. "I have made the money, and it is for you to keep and increase it--yes, increase it, remember--but to spend it freely and wisely. And if you ask me what is wisely, I can only answer that this is a problem for your generation. If you will only use the same pains in trying to solve it as I have in accumulating the money, you will succeed. You are fond, Paul, of exploiting radical propositions, of which you at heart disapprove, in order to test my self-control. Here is something, young man, to chasten your spirit and keep your imagination busy." "You see through me, father, don't you? But you'll admit that my familiarity with radical doctrines is a good sign, especially since I recognize their fallacies, for it shows that I sometimes think. Yes, it is a great responsibility, but I wouldn't exchange--not even with Gordon Perry." "With whom? Ah, yes, I remember; the attorney who was on the foot-ball team with you at Harvard. And why should you consider changing places with him?" "Because the mere question of dollars and cents interests him so little." "Ah! You have been employing him lately, I believe?" "Yes. I like to throw what I can in his way. He understands his business. We lunched together this morning. I enjoy his humor, his independence and his common sense, and at the same time his enthusiasm." "Concerning what?" "Most things except the price of railroad shares and the condition of the money market. We didn't refer to them once." Paul paused with a serio-comic sigh. Mr. Howard knocked the white ash from his cigar and responded: "One of the reasons for sending you to college was that you need not be confined in your conversation to the money market. Another that you should be free in life to do as you chose." "Don't be alarmed, father. You know well enough that nothing would induce me not to follow your lead. Give up business? I couldn't. I love the power and excitement of it. It's bred in the bone, I suppose." The banker's eyes kindled with pride in the son of his heart. "And it's because I know I'm myself that a fellow like Don Perry fascinates me," pursued Paul. "There's no nonsense in him. He objects to cranks and mere psalm-singers as much as I do. But he's absorbed in the social problems of the day--legislative questions, philanthropic questions, all the burning questions. 'And your young men shall see visions.' He is one of them. You will notice that I have not forgotten my Bible altogether, father."