Meanwhile Albert pursued his studies. Though he had not so far to come for a short vacation as the McComas young men, he spent the short vacations at the school. He was at an awkward age, and Raymond, who could see him with eyes not unduly clouded by affection, felt him to be an unpromising cub. He was no adornment for any house, and no satisfying companion for his father. So he passed the Easter week among his teachers.

McComas too saw little of Albert. Those months with his mother were usually worked off at some distant resort, which his stepfather was often too busy to reach. Only once did he spend any of the allotted time in McComas's house. This was a fortnight in that grandiose yet tawdry fabric which had been sacrificed to business, and the occasion was an illness in the family (not Albert's) which delayed the summer's outing. McComas had accepted Albert with a large tolerance—at least he was not annoyed. In fact, the boy's mother, however she may have harassed Raymond, never (to do her justice) pushed Albert on her second husband. So, when the juncture arrived,—

"Why, yes," Johnny had said, "have him here, of course; and let him stay as long as you like. He doesn't bother me."

Well, Albert went ahead, doing his Latin, and groping farther into the dusky penumbra of mathematics. "Why?" he asked; and they explained that it was the necessary preparation for the university. Albert pondered. He began to fear that he must continue learning things he didn't want or need, so that he might go ahead toward learning other things he didn't want or need. He took a plaintive, discouraged tone in a letter to his mother; and she—making an exception to her rule—passed along the protest to McComas. She felt, I suppose, that he would give an answering note.

Johnny laughed. He himself cared nothing for study; and he was so happily constituted, as well as so constantly occupied, that he never had to take refuge in a book.

"Oh, well," he said, broadly, "he'll live through it all, and live it down. I expect Tom and Joe to. The final gains will be in quite another direction."

Raymond had heard the same plaint from Albert, and was less pleased. The boy was clearly to be no student, still less a lover of the arts. Raymond passed over all thought of old Jehiel, the ruthlessly acquisitive, and placed the blame on the other grandfather, who was now in an early dotage after a lifelong harnessing to the stock-ticker.

"I don't know how he's coming out!" was Raymond's impatient remark, over one of Albert's letters. "Who knows what any boy is going to be?"

Albert accepted his school readily enough as a place of residence. He did not now need, so much as before, his mother's small cares—in fact, was glad to be relieved from them; nor was he quite advanced enough to profit from a cautious father's hints and suggestions. I found myself hoping that Raymond, at the coming stage of Albert's development, might have as little trouble as I had had over my own boy (with whose early career I shall not burden you). Yet, after all, fathers may apprehensively exchange views and cautiously devise methods of approach only to find their efforts superfluous: so many boys come through perfectly well, after all. Simply consider, for example, those in our old singing-class. The only one to occasion any inconvenience was Johnny McComas, and he was not a member at all.

The one side of the matter that began to concern Raymond was the money side. Albert cost at school, and was going to cost more at college. His father began to economize. For instance, he cut off, this spring, the contribution which he had been making for years in support of an organization of reformers that had been working for civic betterment. These men, considering their small number and their limited resources had done wonders in raising the tone and quality of the local administration. The city's reputation, outside, had become respectable. But a sag had begun to show itself—the relapse that is pretty certain to follow on an extreme and perhaps overstrained endeavor. The little band needed money. Raymond was urged to reconsider and to continue—the upgrade would soon be reached again. Raymond sent, reluctantly, a smaller amount and asked why the net for contributions was not cast a little wider. He even suggested a few names.

Whether he mentioned the title="222" name of John W. McComas I do not know, but McComas was given an opportunity to help.

"See what they've sent me," he said to me one day on the street.

He smiled over the urgent, fervid phrases of the appeal. The world, so far as he was concerned, was going very well. It didn't need improvement; and if it did, he hadn't the time to improve it.

"They appear to be losing their grip," he added. "They didn't do very well last election, anyhow."

I sensed his reluctance to be associated with a cause that seemed to be a losing one.

"Well, I don't know," I said. "I'm giving something myself; and if I can afford to, you can."

But he developed no interest. He sent a check absurdly disproportionate to his capacity (he was embarrassed, I am glad to say, when he mentioned later the amount); and I incline to think that even this bit was done almost out of a personal regard for me.

Raymond cut a part of his own contribution out of Albert's allowance, and there was better reason than ever why Albert should not take a long trip for only four or five days at home.