When he reached the little room his father was still occupied in the shop. With a remarkable suppression of his all-mastering desire, he determined to wait until eight o’clock until the shop was closed for the night before he laid out his treasure before his father. It must be a solemn ceremonial. There must be no disturbing influence; his father must be his alone when he confided to his keeping the first pieces of silver he had won by the sweat of his brow and the travail of his spirit. Just as it had seemed that seven o’clock would never come, it now seemed that eight o’clock would never come either. The pieces of silver appeared to be playing strange tricks in his pocket. But with a concentration of the will, which he felt to be stupendous, he set about preparing the frugal supper for them both. If the repression of his feeling of triumph were to kill him he must not let it gain expression until his father had closed the shop. Perversely enough his father, all unconscious, did not come into the little room until a quarter-past eight. They sat down together at their evening meal. The man looked with a curious wistfulness into the face of the boy. The eyes were almost weird in their brightness; the pale cheeks were strangely flushed. He rose and took from the hearth a pot of warm broth, which he placed before the boy. Involuntarily the boy drew away from it with a little gesture of repugnance. His father besought him to eat the broth. “Oh no, no, my father,” said the boy, with a shudder, “there is flesh in it!” By a supreme effort of the will the boy swallowed his milk and ate his bread, and cleared the table, and trimmed the hearth before he disclosed his pieces of silver. He even contrived to clothe his unseemly and vainglorious eagerness with a kind of humility as he laid each piece side by side upon the tablecloth. “Behold, my father!” he said in a choking whisper, “I have won my first pieces of silver!” His father enfolded him in tender arms. The slight frame was quivering like that of an imprisoned bird. “Kiss me, my father,” he said, with that simplicity which his father could only obey. The man pressed a caress upon the gaunt cheek. “Let us kneel, my father, together before these pieces of silver,” said the boy. They knelt together. “Thou dost not rejoice as do I, O my father!” said the boy, searching the eyes of the white-haired man. “These pieces of silver do not seem to bring you gladness. And yet I have shouted my joy. To-night I know the pangs of happiness that Hannibal and Cæsar and Alexander felt. To-night I am fit to woo the priestess of Delphi.” “We lose the Promethean fire as age falls about us,” said his father. “We do not dance nor pipe, neither do we sing. But I salute thee, Achilles. Ave, ave, my brave one!”