At times the elder Randal had been summoned to attend these grave sittings of the faculty, and straightway thereafter the rigid New England lawyer had lectured his son at great length and with bitter invective, to which the young man attended in a fashion that was amiable, and immediately disregarded in a fashion that was equally amiable. Thus in the Puritanic bosom of the father the conclusion grew and fattened and matured that the eldest scion of his house was an entirely worthless scapegrace, while the son was quite as certain that his father was a very sincere, but an entirely misguided old gentleman.
The result of these divergent opinions was that on a certain June evening young Randal sat down upon a bench in the park of his father's country place with the express purpose of planning his career. Out of the confidence of youth he determined upon two ultimate results. One was, of course, wealth, and the other was an elaborate and entirely proper wedding ceremony with a certain Miss Marion Lanmar. This young lady, Randal had met at a football game at Harvard, and afterward in New York, where she resided with her aunt, Mrs. Hester Beaufort.
The gigantic confidence of youth is certainly a matter of sublime wonder to the gods. One at all familiar with the ways of things would have at once pronounced both results quite impossible to the improvident young man. But from the standpoint of exuberant youth there seemed to be no important obstacles except the possible delay, and this was not very material, as the world was young and these were things to be had in the farther future.
For the present, Randal determined to organize a political machine and transport it into one of the remote Western States. The East offered no theatre for his talents; it was closely organized; its political machinery was too strong for him to hope to oppose it. He would be crushed out in the first skirmish.
Nor could he hope for early recognition by allying himself to any one of the established organizations. These were crowded with deserving men, and besides, he had no intention of serving as a political apprentice. He had ability, he believed, as a political strategist, and he proposed to operate free and untrammelled in a big, breezy arena.