"Don"t talk that way, Nat. I"ll get you in right somewhere."
"You"re the best-hearted man alive, Harry--but I"ll see you d.a.m.ned first."
"Wait." Kellogg demanded his attention. "Here"s this man Burnham--you don"t know him, but he"s as keen as they make "em. He"s on the track of some wonderful scheme for making illuminating gas from crude oil; if it goes through--if the invention"s really practicable--it"s bound to work a revolution. He"s down in Washington now--left this afternoon to look up the patents. Now he needs me, to get the ear of the Standard Oil people, and I"ll get you in there."
"What right"ve you got to do that?" demanded Duncan. "What the d.i.c.kens do I know about illuminating gas or crude oil? Burnham"d never thank you for the likes o" me."
"But--thunder!--you can learn. All you need--."
"Now see here, Harry!" Duncan gave him pause with a manner not to be denied. "Once and for all time understand I"m through having you recommend an incompetent--just because we"re friends."
"But, Harry--"
"And I"m through living on you while I"m out of a job. That"s final."
"But, man--listen to me!--when we were at college--"
"That was another matter."
"How many times did you pay the room-rent when I was strapped? How many times did your money pull me through when I"d have had to quit and forfeit my degree because I couldn"t earn enough to keep on?"
"That"s different. You earned enough finally to square up. You don"t owe me anything."
"I owe you the grat.i.tude for the friendly hand that put me in the way of earning--that kept me going when the going was rank. Besides, the conditions are just reversed now; you"ll do just as I did--make good in the world and, when it"s convenient, to me. As for living here, you"re perfectly welcome."
"I know it--and more," Duncan a.s.sented a little wearily. "Don"t think I don"t appreciate all you"ve done for me. But I know and you must understand that I can"t keep on living on you,--and I won"t."
For once baffled, Kellogg stared at him in consternation. Duncan met his gaze steadily, strong in the sincerity of his att.i.tude. At length Kellogg surrendered, accepting defeat. "Well...." He shrugged uncomfortably. "If you insist ..."
"I do."
"Then that"s settled."
"Yes, that"s settled."
"Dinner," said Robbins from the doorway, "is served."
III
INSPIRATION
"Look here, Nat," demanded Kellogg, when they were half way through the meal, "do you mind telling me what you"re going to do?"
Duncan pondered this soberly. "No," he replied in the end.
Kellogg waited a moment, but his guest did not continue. "What does that kind of a "No" mean, Nat?"
"It means I don"t mind telling you."
Again an appreciable pause elapsed.
"Well, then, what do you mean to do?"
"I"m sure I don"t know."
Kellogg regarded him sombrely for a moment, then in silence returned his attention to his plate; and in silence, for the most part, the remainder of the dinner was served and eaten. Duncan himself had certainly enough to occupy his mind, while Kellogg had altogether forgotten his own cause for rejoicing in his concern for the fortunes of his friend. He was entirely of the opinion that something would have to be done for Nat, with or without his consent; and he sounded the profoundest depths of romantic impossibilities in his attempts to discover some employment suited to Duncan"s interesting but impracticable a.s.sortment of faculties and qualifications, natural and acquired. But nothing presented itself as feasible in view of the fact that employment which would prove immediately remunerative was required. And by the time that Robbins, clearing the board, left them alone with coffee and cigars and cigarettes, Kellogg was fain to confess failure--though the confession was a very private one, confined to himself only.
"Nat," he said suddenly, rousing that young man out of the dreariest of meditations, "what under the sun _can_ you do?"
"Me? I don"t know. Why bother your silly old head about that? I"ll make out somehow."
"But surely there"s something you"d rather do than anything else."
"My dear sir," Duncan told him impressively, "the only walk of life in which I am fitted to shine is that of the idle son of a rich and foolish father. Since I lost that job I"ve not been worth my salt."
"That"s piffle. There isn"t a man living who hasn"t some talent or other, some sort of an ability concealed about his person."
"You can search me," Duncan volunteered gloomily.
His unresponsiveness irritated Kellogg; he thought a while, then delivered himself of a didactic conclusion:
"The trouble with you is you were brought up all wrong."
"Well, I"ve been brought down all right. Besides, that"s a plat.i.tude in my case."
"Let"s see: I"ve know you--er--nine years."
"Is it that long?" Duncan looked up from a gloomy inspection of the interior of his demita.s.se, displaying his first gleam of interest in this a.n.a.lysis of his character. "You are a long-suffering old duffer.
Any man who"d stand for me for nine years--"
"That"ll be all of that," Kellogg cut in sharply. "I was going on to say that you can"t room with a man for four terms at college and then know him, off and on, for five years more, pretty intimately, without forming a pretty clear estimate of what he"s worth in your own mind."
"And I don"t mind telling you, Harry, I think you"re the best little business man as well as the finest sort of an all-round good-fellow on this continent."
"Thanks awfully. I presume that"s why you"re determined to throw me down just at the time you need me most.... What I was trying to get at is the fact that I"ve never doubted your ultimate success for an instant."
"You"d be a mighty lonesome minority in a congress of my employers, Harry."
"Given the proper opportunity--"
"Hold on," Duncan interrupted. "I know just what you"re going to say, and it"s all very fine, and I"m proud that you want to say it of me.
But you"re dead wrong, Harry. The truth is I haven"t got it in me--the capacity to succeed. Just as much as you love work, I hate it. I ought to know, for I"ve had a good, hard try at it--several tries, in fact.
And you know what they came to."
"But if you persist in this way, Nat,--don"t you know what it means?"