Again the upcast of reminiscence came to make the unsuccessful banker forget for the moment the rotten business craft that was sinking beneath him.

“Eben Grillage,” he mused. “He was, and is, everything that I am not. He was a born leader, even as a boy. Success, or what most people value as success, has been his for the taking. You have[20] seen him, David? Is he growing old, as I am?”

[20]

“You are old only in hard work; work that doesn’t appeal to you,” the son said loyally. Then: “I have met Mr. Grillage only once, and—well, I guess he didn’t have much time to throw away on an apprentice engineer who was just then trying his prettiest to get a chance to talk over old times with his daughter. I remember he asked about you.”

“That was in Florida?”

“Yes. I chased over to Palm Beach as often as I could during the short season, but it didn’t do me much good. There were too many other fellows ahead of me. It was on one of these trips that I met Mr. Grillage. He had run down from some place in Georgia, where his company was building a dam, to spend a week-end with his daughter. The most that he said to me was in the nature of a good-humored ‘josh’ for burying myself in a Government job.”

Adam Vallory nodded.

“You don’t remember Vinnie’s mother, of course; she died while you were still only a little lad. She was what we, in my younger days, used to call a belle; a most attractive woman, and as true and good as she was beautiful. Eben Grillage had none of the qualities that such women are[21] supposed to care for—save one; he was big enough and strong enough to reach out and take what he wanted. He idolized his wife; and the love which was hers while she lived has been carried along to his daughter.”

[21]

“Any one can see that,” said David, laughing. “Virginia is the apple of his eye. Have you kept in touch with him at all since he left Middleboro?”

“Only at long intervals.”

“They say he is rich, and rapidly growing richer. He has made the Grillage Engineering Company; built it from the ground up; and there isn’t any undertaking too big for him to tackle and carry through. If he wasn’t Virginia’s father, I’d strike him for a job—after we get things straightened out here for you.”

“He would do well 

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