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Show Iuerlaque, Huckleberry FlnnltnirXifc erwhlles. There were some other books In the trunk a large odc, which remained re-mained unremoved at the foot ef tho bed, adding to the general Impression of transiency. It contained nearly all the possessions as well as the secret life of Blbba Sheridan, and Bibbs sat beside It, the day after his Interview with hid father, raking over a smalt collection of manuscripts In the top tray. Some of these he glanced through dubiously, finding little comfort In them; but one made him smile. Then he shook bis head ruefully Indeed, and ruefully began to read It. It wad writ-, ten on paper stamped "Hood SanU tarlum," and It bore the title, "Leisure.1 (To be continued) ; j AZTHOJt GF rf ' "MONSIEUR r "THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN" "PENROP " ETC. ( ) r Uy, when the anguish had somewhat abated, "what do you want to do?" Taken by surprise, Blbbs stammered. "What-wbat do-I what " "If I'd let you do exactly what you had the whim for, what would you do?" Blbbs looked startled; then timidity overwhelmed htm a profound shyness. shy-ness. He bent his bead and fixed I1I3 lowered eyes upon the toe of his shoe, whlcli he moved to and fro upon the rug, like a culprit called to the desk in school. "What would you do? Loaf ?" "No, sir." Bibbs' voice was almost Inaudible, and what little sound It irvade was unquestionably a guilty sound. "I suppose I'd I'd try to to write." "Write what?" "Nothing Important Just poems and essays, perhaps." "I sec," said his father, breathing quickly with the restraint he was putting put-ting upon himself. "That is, you want to write, but you don't want to write anything of any account." "You think" Sheridan got up again. "I take my bat off to the man that can write a good ad," be said, emphatically. "The best wrltln' talent in this country is right spang in the ad business today. You buy a magazine for good writln' look on the back of it! Let me tell you I pay money for that kind 0' wrltln'. Maybe you think It's -easy. Juit try it! I've tried it, and I can't do it I tell you an ad'9 got to be written writ-ten so it makes people do the hardest thing In this world to get 'em to do: It's got to make 'em give up their money! You talk about 'poems and essays.' I tell you when it comes to the actual skill o' puttln words together so as to make things happen, R. T. BIoss, right hero in this city, knows more In a minute than George Waldo Emerson ever knew In his whole lifel" "You you may be " Bibbs said, indistinctly, the last word smothered In a cough. suppose that must be your plan for me. But" "But what?" said Sheridan, Irritably, us the son paused. "Isn't there somebody you'd let me propose to?" That brougtK. his father sharply rouud to face him. "You beat the devlll Bibbs, what Is the matter with you? Why can't you be like anybody else?" "Liver, maybe," said Bibbs, gently. "Boh! Even ole Doc Gurney says there's nolhln' wrong with you organically. organ-ically. No. You're a dreamer. Bibbs; that's what's the matter, und that's all the matter. Oh, not one o' these big dreamers that put through the big dealsl No, sir! You're the kind o' dreamer that Just sets out on the back; fence and thinks about how much trouble trou-ble tliere must be in the vorld! That ain't the kind that br.llds the bridges. Bibbs; It's the kind that borrows fifteen fif-teen cents from his wife's unclete brother-in-law to get ten cent's worth o' plug tobacco und a nickel's worth o' quinine!" He put the" finishing touch to this etchiug with a snort, and turned again to the window. "Look out there!" he bade his son. "Look out o' that window! Look at the life and energy down there! Look at the big things young men are doln' In tliis town!" He swung about, coming com-ing to the mahogany desk In the middle mid-dle of the room. "Look at what your own brothers are doln' I Look at Ros-coe! Ros-coe! Y'es, aud look at Jim I I made Jim president o' the Sheridan Realty company last new year's, and It's an example to any young man or ole man, either the way he took ahold of It Last July ve found out we wanted two more big warehouses at the pump works wanted 'ern quick. Contractors said it couldn't be done; said nine or ten mouths at the soonest; couldn't see it any other way. What M Jim do? Took the contract himself; fouad a fellow with a new cemeut and -wucrete process; kept men on the Job night aud day, and stayed on It night and day Boned exhaustively, "had explained I fully and bad pleaded more than a fa- ' ther should, only to be met in the end with the unreasoning and mysterious stubbornness which had been Bibbs' ballllng characteristic from childhood. "By George, you will!" he cried. "You'll go back there and you'll like if! Gurney says it won't hurt you If you like It, and he snys it '11 kill you If you go back and hate It; so It looks as if It was about up to you not to hate It, Well, Gurney's a fool! Ilatln' work doesn't kill anybody; and this isn't goln to kill you, whether you hnte it or not. I've never made a mistake In a serious matter in my life, and it wasn't a mistake my sendiu' you there in the first place. And I'm goln' to prove it I'm goln to send you back there and vindicate my judgment Gurney says it's all 'mental attitude.' Well, you'ro goln' to learn the right one! He says in a couple of more months this fool thing that's been the matter with you'll be disappeared completely and you'll be back In as good or better condition than you were before you ever went Into the shop. And right then Is when you begin over right in that same shop! Nobody can call me a hard mnn or u mean father. I do the best I can for my children,-and I take the full responsibility for brlngin' my sons up to be men. Now, so far, I've failed with you. But I'm not goln' to keep on failin'. I never tackled a job yet I didn't put through, and I'm not goln to begin with my own son. I'm goln' to make a man of you. By God! I Bibbs rose and went slowly to the door, where he turned. "You say you give me a couple of months?" he said. Sheridan pushed a bell-button on his desk. "Gurney said two months more would put you back where you were. You go home and begin to get yourself In the right 'mental attitude' before those two months are up! Good-by!" "Good-by, sir," said Bibbs, meekly. CHAPTER IX. Bibbs' room, that neat apartment for transients to which the "lamldal" George had shown him upon his return, still bore the appearance of temporary quarters, possibly because Bibbs had no clear conception of himself as a permanent incumbent However, he bad set upon the mantelpiece the two photographs that he owned; one, a "group" twenty years old his father and mother, with Jim and Roscoe as boys and the other a "cabinet" ol Edith at sixteen. And upon a tabic were the books he had taken from his trunk: S.nrtorResartus, Virglnlbus I SYNOPSIS. I CHAPTER I-Sheridan'n Umpt to l&Aice a buulnM man of hla non Blbba by Starting him In Ui machine shop ends In .pibba going to a sanitarium, a nervous wreck. ' CHAPTER Il-On hla return Blbba 1 boat at tbo BtaUon by bis sister Kdlch. CHAPTER III He finds himself an ln-itotmlderable ln-itotmlderable and unconsidered lllfure In the "New Houne" oi the ShorldanB. He w8 Mary Ver trees looking at him from a summer bouse next door. CHAPTKIl IV The VertreeaeH, old town family and impoverished, call on the Chwidans, newly-rich, and afterward discuss dis-cuss them. Mary puts Into words her jmrenLs" unfipokcu wmli that alio Marry one of the Sheridan boya. CHAPTER V-At the Sheridan house-warming house-warming bxnquet Sheridan spreads himself. him-self. Alary frankly encourages Jlrn Sheridan's Sheri-dan's attention, and Bibbs hears be la to le sent back to the machine shop. CHAPTER VI-Mary tells her mother bout the banquet and shocks her mother moth-er by talking of Jim as a matrimonial .possibility. "Of bourse yon don't! she said. "Now, Mr. Sheridan, I want you to start the car. Now! Thank you. Slowly, Slow-ly, till I finish what I want to say. I Slave not flirted with you. I have de- was In too big a hurry to bother much about trees. Onward the car bore Bibbs through the older parts of the town where the few solid old houses not already demolished de-molished were In transition; some were being made Into apartment buildings; others had gone uproariously Into trade; one or two peeped humorously bver the tops of office buildings of one-jptory one-jptory In the old front yards. Altogether, the town here was like a boarding-, iouse hash the Sunday after Thanksgiving; Thanks-giving; the old Ingredients were discernible. dis-cernible. This was the fringe of Bigness' own sanctuary, and now Bibbs reached thef roaring holy of holies Itself. Magnlfl-pent Magnlfl-pent new buildings, already dingy, loomed hundreds of feet above him; pewer ones, more magnificent, "were rising beside them, rising higher; the f treets were laid open to their entrails nnd men worked underground between palisades, and overhead in metal ob-webs ob-webs like spiders In the sky. Trolley cars clanged and shrieked their way round swarming corners; motor cars ff every kind and shape known tc man babbled frightful warnings and frantic nimseir and, by Ueorgel we begin to use tbem warehouses next week! Four months and a half, and every Inch fire-proofl fire-proofl I tell you Jim's one o' these fellers that make miracles happen! I tell you these young business men I watch Just do my heart good! They don't set around on the back fence no, Bir! They're puttin' thjir life-blood Into In-to It, I tell you, and that's why we're gcttin' bigger every minute, aud why they're getllu' bigger, and why It's all goin' to keep on gcttin' bigger!" He slapped the desk resoundingly with his open palm, and then, observing observ-ing that Bibbs rcimiiued in the same lmpasflve attitude, with his eyes still fixed upon the celling In a coutempla-tion coutempla-tion somewhat plaintive, Sheridan was Impelled to groun. "Oh, Lord!" he said. "This is the way you always were. I don't believe you understand a darn word I been sayiu'! You don't look as If you did. By George! It's discouraging!" dis-couraging!" "I dou't understand about getting about getting bigger," said Bibbs, bringing his gaze down to look at his father placatlvely. "I don't see Just why " "What?" Sheridan leaned forward, resting his hands upon the desk and staring across it incredulously at hi son. "I don't understand exactly what you want it all bigger for?" "Great God!" shouted Sheridan, and 6truck the desk a blow with his clenched fist "A son of mine asks me that! You go out and ask the poorest day laborer you caa And! Ask him that question " "I did once," Bibbs Interrupted; "when I was In the machine shop. I' "Wha'frhe say?" "He said. 'Oh, hell!'" answered Bibbs, mildly. "Yes, 1 reckon be would!" Sheridan swung away from the desk. "I reckon he certainly would! And I got plenty sympathy with him right now, myself!" "It's the same answer, then?" Bibbs' voice was serious, almost tremulous. "Damnation!" Sheridan roared. "Did you ever hear the word prosperity, pros-perity, you ninny? Did you ever hear the word ambition? Did you ever bear the word progress?" lie flung himself into a chair after the outburst, his big chest surging, his throat tumultuous with guttural incoherences. inco-herences. "Now then," he said, husk- "Of course I'm right! And if it ain't Just like you to want to take op with the most out-o'-date kind o wrltln' there Is! 'Poems and essays'! My Lord, Bibbs, that's women's work! Why, look at Edith! I expect that poem o' hers would set a pretty high-water high-water mark for you, young man, and It's the only one fche's ever managed to write in her whole life! And Edith's H smart girl; sbe's got more energy in her little finger than you ever five me a chance to see in your whole body, Bibbs. I'm not sayin' a word against poetry. I wouldn't take ten thousand dollars ri-li t now for tlmV poem of Edith's; and poetry's all rU'it enough in ii place but yon leava It' to the girls. A man's got to do a linn's work In this world.'' lie seated himself in a chair at his son's 6ide and, leaning over, tapped Bibbs confidentially on the knee. "This city's got the greatest future in America, and if my sons behave riht by me and by themselves they're goin' to have a mighty fair share of it a mighty fair share. I love this town. I love It like I do my own business, and I'd fight for it as quick as I'd fight for my own family. It's a beautiful town. Look at our wholesale district; look at any district you want to; look at the park system we're puttin' through, and the boulevards and the public statuary. And she grows. God! liow she grows!" ! He had become Intensely grave; he spoke with solemnity. "Now, Bibbs, I can't take any of it nor any gold or silver nor buildings nor bonds away with me In my shroud when I have to go. But I want to leave roy share In it to my boys. I've worked for it; I've been a builder and a maker; and two blades of grass have grown where oih grew before, whenever T In Id my hand on the ground and willed 'em to isrow. I've built big, and I wont the bulldln' ' to go cn. And when my last hour j comes I want to know that ray boys are ready to take charge. Bibbs, when I'm up above I want to know that the. big share I've made mine, here below, is growln bigger and bigger in the I charge of my boys." He leaned back, deeply moved. "There!" he said, huskily. "I've never spoken more what was In my heart In my life. I do It because I want you to understand and not think me a mean father. I never had to talk that way to Jim and Uoscoe. They-understood without any talk, Bibbs." "I see," said Bibbs. "At least I think I do. But" "Wait a minute!" Sheridan raised hla hand. "If you see the least bit in. the world, then you understand what It meant to start one o' my boys and have him come back on me the way you did, and have to be sent to a Banl-tarlum Banl-tarlum because he couldn't stand work. Now, let's get right dowu to it, Bibbs. I've had a whole lot o' talk with ole Doc Gurney about you, one time and another, aud I reckon I understand your case Just about as well as he does, anyway. "Now, why did work make you sick, Instead of brace you up and make a man of you the way It ought of done? I pinned ole Gurney down to it I says, 'Look here, ain't it really because he Just plain hated it?' 'Yes.' he says, 'that's It If he'd enjoyed It, It wouldn't 'a' hurt him.' And that's about the way it Is." "ies," said Blbbs, "that's about the way it Is." "Well, then, I reckon it's up to me not ouly to make you do It, but to make you like It!" Bibbs shivered. And he turned upon his father a look that was almost ghostly. "I can't," he said, In a low voice. "I can't" "Can't go back to the shop?" "No. Can't like it I can t" Sheridan jumped up. his pnrlenr goue. To hia jowu view,he had rea- llberately courted you. One thing more, and then I want you to take me straight home, talking about the weather all the way. I said that I do not believe I shall ever 'care' for any - .ilin, nnd that is true. I doubt the existence ex-istence of the kind of 'caring' we hear about In poems and plays and novels. I think It must be just a kind of emotional emo-tional talk most of iL At all events, I don't feel it. Now, we can go faster, please." "Just where does that let me out?" iie demanded. "How does that excuse you for " "It Isn't an excuse," s'ie said, gently, and gave him one final look, wholly desolate. "I haven't said I should never marry," "What?" Jlui gasped. Ehe inclined her head In a broken eort of acquiescence, very humble, un-fathomably un-fathomably sorrowful. "I promise nothing," she said, '..faintly. "You needn't!" ehouted Jim, radiant and exultant "You needn't!. By George! I know you're square; that's enough for me! You wait and promise whenever you're ready!" "Don't forget what I asked," she pegged him. "Talk 'about the weather? I will! God bless the old weather!" cried the fiiappy Jim. CHAPTER VIII. Through the open country Bibbs was borne flying between brown fields aud sun-Decked groves of gray trees, to fereatbe the rushing, clean air beneath a jlorlous sky. Upon Bibbs' cheeks tliere was a hint of actual color, but undeniably unde-niably Its phantom. This apparition toay have been partly the result of a lady's bowing to him upon no more formal introduction than the circumstance circum-stance of bis having caught her looking look-ing Into bis window a month before. It Beemed to Blbbs that she must have meant to convey her forglveuess. Nor did he lack the Impression that he . -would long remember her as be had Just seen her; her veil tumultuously blowing back, her face glowing in the wind and that look of gay friendliness friendli-ness tossed to him like a fresh rose In carnival. By and by, upon a rising ground, the driver halted the cur, then backed nnd tacked, and sent It forward again with Its nose to the south aud the smoke. Tbcy passed from the farm lands, uud came, in the amber light of November Jate afternoon, to the farthermost out-iklrts out-iklrts of the city. The sky had become f .only a dingy thickening of the soiled T Ar; aud a roar and clangor of metals beat deafeulngly on Blbbs' ears. Now the car passed two great blocks of long , brick buildings, hideous In all ways possible to make them hideous. And big as these shops were, they were growing bigger, spreading over a third block, where two new structures were mushrooming to completion in some hasty cement process of a stability noO over-reassuring. Bibbs pulled the rug closer about him, and not even the phantom of color was left upon hla cheeks as he passed this place, for ho knew it too well. Across the face of; one of the buildings there was an enormous enor-mous igu: "Sheridan Automatic Tump company, Inc." Thence they went through streets of wooden houses, till grimed, and adding their own grime from many a sooty chimney; lliinsy wooden houses of a thousand flimsy whimsies In the fash lonlng, built on narrow lots and nudging nudg-ing one another crossly. Aloug thesa 8tr'cts there were skinny shade trees, end here and there u forest elm or wal-: uut had been left; but these wero dying. Some people said it was the scale; pme said it wus the smoke; aud pome wc-.. --e that asphalt and "Improving" "Im-proving" the KU-cets did it; but Bigness "Sit Down," Said 8herldan. demands; hospital ambulances clam-red clam-red wildly for passage; steam whistles iignaled .he swinging of titanic tentacle and claw; riveters rattled like machine guns; the ground shook to the thunder of gigantic trucks; and the ronglomeri e sound of It all was the louud of earthquake playing accompaniments accom-paniments for battle and sudden deatti. And In the hurrying crowds, swirling swirl-ing and sifting through the brobdlngna-glan brobdlngna-glan camp of iron and steel, one s&v the camp followers and the pagaa women there would be work today and dancing tonight. For the Puritan's iry voice Is but the crackling of a leaf uuderfoot in the rush nnd roar of the coming of the new Egypt. Bibbs was on time He knew it must be "to the minute" or his father would consider it an outrage; and the big chronometer In Sheridan's office marked four precisely when Blbbs walked In. Coincident Uy with hla entrance en-trance five people who had been at work in the office, under Sheridan's direction, di-rection, wulked out They departed upou no visible or audible suggestion, aud with a promptness that seemed ominous to the newcomer. As the massive mas-sive door clicked softly behind the elderly stenographer, the last of the procession. Bibbs had a feeling that they all understood that he was a failure fail-ure as a great man's sou, a disappointment, disappoint-ment, the "queer one" of the family, and that he had been summoned to Judgment a well-founded impression, for that was exactly what they understood. under-stood. "Sit down," said Sheridan. It is frequently an advantage for' deans, schoolmasters and worried fathers fa-thers to place delinquents in the sitting sit-ting posture. Blbbs sat. Sheridan, standing, gazed enigmatically enigmatic-ally upon his sou for a period of sileuce, then walked slowly to a window win-dow and stood looking out of It. Ids big bands, loosely hooked together Uy the thumbs, behind his back, luey were soiled, as were all other huuuj down town, except such us might be still damp from a basin. "Well, Blbbs," he said ut last not altering his uttltude, "do you know what I'm goln' to do with you?" Bibbs, loauiug back iu his chair, lixed his eyes contemplatively upon the ceiling. ceil-ing. "I heard you tell Jim," lie bewail, lu his slow way. "You salA you'd seud liiai to the machine shop with me If he 1 xiidu't propose to Mill Vertreea So I 'A Man's Got to Do a Man's Work." |