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stirred up about it."
"No, no," his father said, peevishly. "I don't know anything about it, and I don't care to know anything about
it. I want to talk to you about something important."
Then, as he was again silent, Walter said, "Well, TALK about it; I'm listening."
"It's this," Adams began, heavily. "It's about me going into this glue business. Your mother's told you, hasn't
she?"
"She said you were goin' to leave the old place down-town and start a glue factory. That's all I know about it; I
got my own affairs to 'tend to."
"Well, this is your affair," his father said, frowning. "You can't stay with Lamb and Company."
Walter looked a little startled. "What you mean, I can't? Why not?"
"You've got to help me," Adams explained slowly; and he frowned more deeply, as if the interview were
growing increasingly laborious for him. "It's going to be a big pull to get this business on its feet."
"Yes!" Walter exclaimed with a sharp skepticism. "I should say it was!" He stared at his father incredulously.
"Look here; aren't you just a little bit sudden, the way you're goin' about things? You've let mother shove you
a little too fast, haven't you? Do you know anything about what it means to set up a new business these days?"
"Yes, I know all about it," Adams said. "About this business, I do."
"How do you?"
"Because I made a long study of it. I'm not afraid of going about it the wrong way; but it's a hard job and
you'll have to put in all whatever sense and strength you've got."
CHAPTER XV 103
Walter began to breathe quickly, and his lips were agitated; then he set them obstinately. "Oh; I will," he said.
"Yes, you will," Adams returned, not noticing that his son's inflection was satiric. "It's going to take every bit
of energy in your body, and all the energy I got left in mine, and every cent of the little I've saved, besides
something I'll have to raise on this house. I'm going right at it, now I've got to; and you'll have to quit Lamb's
by the end of next week."
"Oh, I will?" Walter's voice grew louder, and there was a shrillness in it. "I got to quit Lamb's the end of next
week, have I?" He stepped forward, angrily. "Listen!" he said. "I'm not walkin' out o' Lamb's, see? I'm not
quittin' down there: I stay with 'em, see?"
Adams looked up at him, astonished. "You'll leave there next Saturday," he said. "I've got to have you."
"You don't anything o' the kind," Walter told him, sharply. "Do you expect to pay me anything?"
"I'd pay you about what you been getting down there."
"Then pay somebody else; I don't know anything about glue. You get somebody else."
"No. You've got to---"
Walter cut him off with the utmost vehemence. "Don't tell me what I got to do! I know what I got to do
better'n you, I guess!
I stay at Lamb's, see?"
Adams rose angrily. "You'll do what I tell you. You can't stay down there."
"Why can't I?"
"Because I won't let you."
"Listen! Keep on not lettin' me: I'll be there just the same."
At that his father broke into a sour laughter. "THEY won't let you, Walter! They won't have you down there
after they find out I'm going."
"Why won't they? You don't think they're goin' to be all shot to pieces over losin' YOU, do you?"
"I tell you they won't let you stay," his father insisted, loudly.
"Why, what do they care whether you go or not?"
"They'll care enough to fire YOU, my boy!"
"Look here, then; show me why."
"They'll do it!"
"Yes," Walter jeered; "you keep sayin' they will, but when I ask you to show me why, you keep sayin' they
will! That makes little headway with ME, I can tell you!"
CHAPTER XV 104
Adams groaned, and, rubbing his head, began to pace the floor. Walter's refusal was something he had not
anticipated; and he felt the weakness of his own attempt to meet it: he seemed powerless to do anything but
utter angry words, which, as Walter said, made little headway. "Oh, my, my!" he muttered, "OH, my, my!"
Walter, usually sallow, had grown pale: he watched his father narrowly, and now took a sudden resolution.
"Look here," he said. "When you say Lamb's is likely to fire me because you're goin' to quit, you talk like the
people that have to be locked up. I don't know where you get such things in your head; Lamb and Company
won't know you're gone. Listen: I can stay there long as I want to. But I'll tell you what I'll do: make it worth
my while and I'll hook up with your old glue factory, after all."
Adams stopped his pacing abruptly, and stared at him. "'Make it worth your while?' What you mean?"
"I got a good use for three hundred dollars right now," Walter said. "Let me have it and I'll quit Lamb's to
work for you. Don't let me have it and I SWEAR I won't!"
"Are you crazy?"
"Is everybody crazy that needs three hundred dollars?"
"Yes," Adams said. "They are if they ask ME for it, when I got to stretch every cent I can lay my hands on to
make it look like a dollar!"
"You won't do it?"
Adams burst out at him. "You little fool! If I had three hundred dollars to throw away, besides the pay I
expected to give you, haven't you got sense enough to see I could hire a man worth three hundred dollars more
to me than you'd be? It's a FINE time to ask me for three hundred dollars, isn't it! What FOR? Rhinestone
buckles to throw around on your 'girl friends?' Shame on you! Ask me to BRIBE you to help yourself and
your own family!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]