Thought I'd come home and surprise you."
"Bu-bu-but--"
"It drives me wild to have a man sputter at me. I'm an electrical and
civil engineer, I tell you, and my two years of travel have been
spent studying the installation and construction of big plants
abroad." He commenced to chuckle softly. "I've known for years that
our sawmill was a debilitated old coffee-grinder and would have to be
rebuilt, so I wanted to know how to rebuild it. And I've known for
years that some day I might have to build a logging railroad--"
"My dear boy! And you've got your degree?"
"Partner, I have a string of letters after my name like the tail of a
comet."
"You comfort me," the old man answered simply. "I have reproached
myself with the thought that I reared you with the sole thought of
making a lumberman out of you--and when I saw your lumber business
slipping through my fingers--"
"You were sorry I didn't have a profession to fall back on, eh? Or
were you fearful lest you had raised the usual rich man's son? If the
latter, you did not compliment me, pal. I've never forgotten how hard
you always strove to impress me with a sense of the exact weight of
my responsibility as your successor."
"How big are you now?" his father queried suddenly.
"Well, sir," Bryce answered, for his father's pleasure putting aside
his normal modesty, "I'm six feet two inches tall, and I weigh two
hundred pounds in the pink of condition.
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