" (And yet he had received him gladly.)
"It doesn't look quite as easy as making catalogues."
"It isn't."
Isaac had found the opening he desired. "I should think all this
literary work was rather a 'eavy strain."
"It does make you feel a bit muzzy sometimes, when you're at it from
morning to night."
"Is the game worth the candle? Is it worth it? Have you made your
fortune at it?"
"Not yet."
"Well--I gave you three years."
Keith smiled. "What did you give me them for? To make my fortune in?"
"To learn common-sense in."
Keith laughed. "It wasn't enough for that. You should have given me
three hundred, at the very least!"
The laugh was discouraging, and Isaac felt that he was on the wrong
tack.
"I'd give you as many as you like, if I could afford to wait. But I
consider I've waited long enough already."
"What were you waiting for?"
"For you to come back--"
Keith's face was radiant with innocent inquiry.
"--To come back into the business."
The light of innocence died out of the face as suddenly as it had
kindled.
"My dear father, I shall never come back. I thought I'd made that very
clear to you."
"You never made it clear--your behaviour to me. Not but what I 'ad an
idea, which perhaps I need not name. I've never asked what there was
at the bottom of that foolish business, and I've never blamed you for
it. If it made you act badly to me, I've reason to believe it kept you
out of worse mischief.
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