"Ye-es," the boy assented without particular enthusiasm, "but if he had
got the store, we should have been rich now?"

"We," repeated the mother in a funny tone. "Why, then there would have
been no _we_."

"Why not," he demanded.

"Or it might have been worse still," she whispered as if momentarily
forgetful of the boy's presence.

"There is your father now," she said a moment later, when a slight stir
was heard in the adjoining room. "Don't say anything more about the
store.... Do you know what your father wanted to be most of all?"

Keith looked up speculatively as his father appeared at the doorway to
the parlour--a man of medium height, who stooped because he was
nearsighted, and so looked shorter than he was, but also stronger
because of the great width of his shoulders.

"I can tell you," the father put in. "When I couldn't study, I wanted to
be a sailor, and I tried to take hire on a ship whose master knew me and
wished to help me. Then they found out that I was too nearsighted to
steer by the compass, and that was the end of it. Didn't I tell that I
was born under the Monkey Star?"

"Don't talk like that, Carl," the mother protested, rising to give him a
kiss. "You have done very well, and there is no man in the bank more
respected than you."