you."

"You won't have to go very far or fast. I've got only smatterings." But
the boy spoke with a subdued complacency not wholly lost upon the shrewd
father.

"Not so much that you'll think Worthington dull and provincial?"

"Oh, I dare say I shall find it a very decent little place."

But here Hal touched another pride and loyalty, quite as genuine as that
which Dr. Surtaine felt for his son.

"Little place!" he cried. "Two hundred thousand of the livest people on
God's earth. A gen-u-wine American city if there ever was one."

"Evidently it suits you, sir."

"Couldn't suit better if I'd had it made to order," chuckled the Doctor.
"And I did pretty near make it over to order. It was a dead-and-alive
town when we opened up here. Didn't care much about my business, either.
Now we're the biggest thing in town. Why Certina is the cross-mark that
shows where Worthington is on the map. The business is sim-plee
BOOMING." The word exploded in rapture. "Nothing like it ever known in
the proprietary trade. Wait till you see the shop."

"That will be soon, won't it, sir? I think I've loafed quite long
enough."

"You're only twenty-five," his father defended him. "It isn't as if