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."
"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."
Percy pulled out the slip of pasteboard and passed it over.
"I can get the money on it. The agent'll take it back."
"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?"
"Then you don't get a cent more from me. You've overdrawn your bank-account already."
"How do you know? You haven't been down to the bank."
"You don't suppose I'd have a monthly check deposited to your account without arranging to know something about it, do you? Mighty poor business man if I did! Now, Percy, use what little brain you have! You've no money, and you can't earn any. Nobody would be fool enough to hire you. There's nothing on earth you can do. I'm going to give you one last chance to make a man of yourself. You've three months to make good in and I expect you to do it. You've got to make up those conditions and earn your salt to show there's some excuse for your being alive. Your whole life hangs on the way you spend the next hundred days. I start for the West Coast to-morrow, and won't be back till fall. I want you to write me--if you feel like it. Will you go?"