Somebody knocked on the door.

"Come in!" called Spurling.

To their great surprise, in came Mr. Whittington.

Removing his Panama, he took the chair Spurling offered him. An unlighted cigar was gripped between his short, stubby fingers. There were dark circles under his steel-gray eyes, and his jaw had, if possible, more of a bulldog set than ever. His square, st.u.r.dy build, without fat or softness, suggested a freight locomotive with a driving power to go through anything. He was not a handsome man, but he was undeniably a strong one.

He plunged at once into the purpose of his visit.

"I guess you know I'm Whittington's father. I've just been over to Princ.i.p.al Blodgett's, having a talk about Percy. I don't need to tell you how he's spent his year here, so I'll come right to the point."

He leaned forward and fastened his keen eyes on Spurling.

"The princ.i.p.al says you plan to spend the summer fishing from an island on the Maine coast. I want Percy to go with you."

The three exchanged glances of amazement. Lane swallowed a grin. n.o.body spoke for a half-minute; then Spurling broke the silence.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mr. Whittington, but, honestly, the thing isn't possible. That island is ten miles from the nearest other land. We're not out for a pleasure junket, but for three months of the hardest kind of hard work. There'll be no automobiling, no pool or cards or moving pictures. It means being up at midnight, and not getting to bed until the fish have been taken care of. It means sore fingers and lame backs and aching joints. It means standing wind and cold and fog and rain until you're tired and wet and chilled to the bone. It's a dead-earnest business out there, one hundred days of it, and every day has got to count. A college year for the three of us hangs on this summer, and we can't risk having it spoiled. You'll have to think up some other place for Percy."

Mr. Whittington's chin set a trifle more firmly. He pulled out his cigar-case and proffered it to each of the boys in turn.

"Have a perfecto? No? Guess it's as well for you not to, after all. Wish Percy was taken that way. Excuse me if I light up. I can talk better."

Soon he was smoking hard.

"I want to have a little talk with you about my boy. Come, now, just between ourselves, what kind of a fellow is he? You probably know him better than I do. I've had my business; and he's been under tutors and away at school so long that I haven't seen much of him since his mother died, eight years ago."

The boys glanced at one another and hesitated. Young Whittington was a hard topic to discuss before his father. The millionaire misunderstood their silence. His face grew gloomy.

"Oh, well, if he's as bad as all that, no matter! I hoped he might have _some_ good points."

"Don't misunderstand us, Mr. Whittington," said Spurling, quietly.

"Percy isn't a bad fellow. He isn't dishonest. He doesn't cheat or crib.

He's flunked honestly, and that counts for something. He's a good sprinter, and plays a rattling game of tennis, and he'd be a very fair baseball-player if he'd only let cigarettes alone. But he's soft and he's lazy. He's had too much money and taken things too easy. He's probably never earned a single cent or done a stroke of real work in his life. He's been in the habit of letting his pocketbook take the place of his brain and muscles; and he's got the idea that a check, if it's only large enough, can buy anything on earth. That's why he wouldn't be any good to himself or anybody else out on Tarpaulin Island. He'd simply be underfoot. It'd be cruel to take him there. Excuse me if I hurt your feelings. You've asked a straight question, and I've tried to give you a straight answer."

The man chewed the b.u.t.t of his cigar for a few seconds. Then he removed it from his mouth and blew a smoke-ring.

"I don't believe," he said, reflectively, "that either of you three had any tougher time than I had when I was a boy. No school after fourteen.

No college. Just work, work, work, and then some more work. But it hardened me up, made a man of me; perhaps it hardened me too much.

Guess some of the men I've done business with have thought so. After I made my first million--"

He broke off abruptly.

"But let's get back to Percy. I've done everything in the world for that boy, and now I'm at the end of my rope. Tutors, private schools, summer camps, trainers, travel, automobiles--and what have they all amounted to?"

He talked rapidly and nervously, emphasizing with his cigar.

"It's no use to offer him any prize; he's had everything already. I found he was. .h.i.tting too rapid a pace in the bigger schools, so I sent him down here. Thought he might do better in a quiet place. But his reports didn't show it, and the talk I've just had with the princ.i.p.al has pretty near discouraged me. I've bucked up against a good many tough propositions, but I'm free to say that he's the toughest. I don't see where he ever got that cigarette habit. I never smoked one in my life."

Again he began puffing furiously.

"He ought to have the stuff in him somewhere; and I believe a summer with you fellows'd bring it out. If it didn't, I don't know what would.

Come, boys! Strain a point to oblige me! I'll pay you anything in reason. How large a check shall I write?"

He reached for his inside pocket. Spurling flushed and held up his hand.

"No, Mr. Whittington," said he, decidedly, "we can't do business that way. We're not running any reform school and we're not asking anybody to give us a cent. We're going out there to earn money for our first year in college, and we're going to take it out of the sea, every last copper! I don't say it to boast, but since I was ten I've had to shift for myself. I know where every cent in my pocket and every ounce of muscle on my body has come from. If Percy should go with us he'd have to take his medicine with the rest of us and pay his own way by working.

Give us a little time alone to talk the matter over, and we'll soon tell you whether he can go or not."

Whittington heaved his square bulk erect and crushed on his hat.

"I'll be back in ten minutes."

Almost to the second he was at the door again. Stepping inside, he awaited their verdict, not trying to conceal his anxiety. A great relief overspread his face at Spurling's first words.

"All right, Mr. Whittington! Percy can come--on trial. He can stop with us a month. Then if we don't hitch together he'll have to leave. But if he likes it, and we like him, he can stay the rest of the summer. If the bunch earns anything over and above what it would have gotten if he hadn't been with us, he'll get it. If it doesn't, he won't."

Five minutes later the millionaire entered Percy's room. The latter was smoking a cigarette and playing solitaire. He glanced up expectantly, a couple of cards in his hand. As he sat down opposite his son, John Whittington had never looked grimmer. The vein swelled blue on his flushed temples, and the lines on his face were deeply drawn.

"Now, Percy, you and I are going to talk business. Put down those cards and chuck that coffin-nail into the stove. Why can't you use a man's smoke if you're going to smoke at all? I've been talking with Mr.

Blodgett, and I find it's the same old story. You've wound up your preparatory course with a worse smash than you had this afternoon. You haven't made good. I'm beginning to doubt if you _can_ make good. You've done worse every year. You're nothing now, and if you keep on like this you'll soon be worse than nothing. You can put down one thing good and solid--I won't stand for your going the pace like Chauncey Pike or George Brimmer's son. I'd give half my money--yes, the whole of it, if you had the stuff in you that young Spurling has. I mean it."

He stopped, then began again:

"I'm going to give you one chance more, and only one. It's quicksilver, kill or cure, and a stiff dose at that. I've just been talking with Spurling and his two friends. They're to spend the summer fishing from an island off the Maine coast, to earn money to start their college course. And you're going with them!"

"What! Me! I rather guess not! Nailed to the mast three months out on a rock like that? Not for a minute! Besides, I'm booked for Bar Harbor day after to-morrow. Got my ticket already."

"Let's look at it!"

Percy pulled out the slip of pasteboard and pa.s.sed it over.

His father thrust it into his pocket.

"I can get the money on it. The agent'll take it back."

"But I don't want him to take it back."

"_I_ do."

The bulldog jaws clamped together.

"Oh, I say, Dad! Come, now! That isn't using me right!"

"Isn't using you right? Why not? Don't be a fool, Percy! Whose money bought that ticket?"

"Mi-- Why--er--yours, of course!"

"Well, will you go to the island?"