Fitz did not take a degree at Oxford. He left in the middle of his last term, leaving many friends behind. He stood well, and had been in no especial difficulty of mischief, and why he left was a mystery. The truth of the matter is that he had been planning for ten years to leave Oxford in the very middle of his last term. For upon that date fell his twenty-first birthday, when he was to be his own man. He spent a few hours in his mother's house in London. And, of course, she tried to make him go back and finish, and was very much upset, for her. But Fitz was obdurate.

"If it were Yale, or Princeton, or Harvard, or Berkeley, or Squedunk," he said, "I would stick it out. But a degree from Oxford isn't worth six weeks of home."

"But aren't you going to wait till I can go with you?"

"If you'll go with me to-night you shall have my state-room, and I'll sleep on the coal. But if you can't go till to-morrow, mother mine, I will not wait. I have cabled my father," said he, "to meet me at quarantine."

"Your poor, busy father," she said, "will hardly feel like running on from Cleveland to meet a boy who is coming home without a degree."

"My father," said Fitz, "will be at quarantine. He will come out in a tug. And he will arrange to take me off and put me ashore before the others. If the ship is anywhere near on schedule my father and I will be in time to see a ball game at the Polo Grounds."

Something in the young man's honest face and voice aroused an answering enthusiasm in his mother's heart.

"Oh, Fitz," she said, "if I could possibly manage it I would go with you. Tell your father that I am sailing next week. I won't cable. Perhaps he'll be surprised and pleased."

"I know he will," said Fitz, and he folded his mother in his arms and rumpled her hair on one side and then on the other.

* * * * *

Those who beheld, and who, because of the wealth of the principal personages, took notice of the meeting between Fitz and his father, say that Fitz touched his father's cheek with his lips as naturally and unaffectedly as if he had been three years old, that a handshake between the two men accompanied this salute, and that Williams senior was heard to remark that it had looked like rain early in the morning, but that now it didn't, and that he had a couple of seats for the ball game. What he really said was inside, neither audible nor visible upon his smooth-shaven, care-wrinkled face. It was an outcry of the heart, so joyous as to resemble grief.

There was a young and pretty widow on that ship who had made much of Fitz on the way out and had pretended that she understood him. She thought that she had made an impression, and that, whatever happened, he would not forget her. But when he rushed up, his face all joyous, to say good-by, her heart sank. And she told her friends afterward that there was a certain irresistible, orphan-like appeal about that young Williams, and that she had felt like a mother toward him. But this was not till very much later. At first she used to shut herself up in her room and cry her eyes out.

They lunched at an uptown hotel and afterward, smoking big cigars, they drove to a hatter's and bought straw hats, being very critical of each other's fit and choice.

Then they hurried up to the Polo Grounds, and when it began to get exciting in the fifth inning, Fitz felt his father pressing something into his hand. Without taking his eyes from Wagsniff, who was at the bat, Fitz put that something into his mouth and began to chew. The two brothers—for that is the high relationship achieved sometimes in America, and in America alone, between father and son—thrust their new straw hats upon the backs of their round heads, humped themselves forward, and rested with their elbows on their knees and watched—no, that is your foreigner's attitude toward a contest—they played the game.

I cannot leave them thus without telling the reader that they survived the almost fatal ninth, when, with the score 3-2 against, two out and a man on first, Wagsniff came once more to the bat and, swinging cunningly at the very first ball pitched to him by the famous Mr. Blatherton, lifted it over the centrefielder's head and trotted around the bases and, grinning like a Hallowe'en pumpkin, came romping home.

At dinner that night Williams senior said suddenly:

"Fitz, what you do want to do?"

A stranger would have thought that Fitz was being asked to choose between a theatre and a roof-garden, but Fitz knew that an entirely different question was involved in those casually spoken words. He was being asked off-hand to state off-hand what he was going to do with his young life. But he had his answer waiting.

"I want to see the world," he said.

Williams senior, as a rule, thought things out in his own mind and did not press for explanations. But on the present occasion he asked:

"As how?"

Fitz smiled very youthfully and winningly.

"I've seen some of it," he said, "right side up. Now I want to have a look upside-down. If I go into something of yours—as myself—I don't get a show. I'm marked. The other clerks would swipe to me, and the heads would credit me with brains before I showed whether I had any or not. I want you to get me a job in Wall Street—under any other name than my own—except Percy"—they both laughed—"your first name and mamma's maiden name would do—James Holden. And nobody here knows me by sight, I've been abroad so much; and it seems to me I'd get an honest point of view and find out if I was any good or not, and if I could get myself liked for myself or not."

"Well," said his father; "well, that's an idea, anyhow."

"I've had valets and carriages and luxuries all my life," said Fitz. "I think I like them. But I don't know—do I? I've never tried the other thing. I'm sure I don't want to be an underpaid clerk always. But I am sure I want to try it on for a while."

"I was planning," said his father, "to take a car and run about the country with you and show you all the different enterprises that I'm interested in. I thought you'd make a choice, find something you liked, and go into it for a starter. If you're any good you can go pretty far with me pulling for you. You don't like that idea?"

"Not for now," said Fitz. "I like mine better."

"Do you want to live on what you earn?"

"If I can stand it."

"You'll be started with ten dollars a week, say. Can you do it?"

"What did grandpa start on?" asked Fitz.

"His board, two suits of clothes, and twenty-four dollars a year," said
William senior with a proud ring in his voice.

"And you?"

"I began at the bottom, too. That was the old-fashioned idea. Father was rich then. But he wanted me to show that I was some good."

"Did grandpa pull for you, or did you have to find yourself?"

"Well," said the father diffidently, "I had a natural taste for business. But," and he smiled at his son, "I shouldn't live on what you earn, if I were you. You needn't spend much, but have a good time out of hours. You'll find yourself working side by side with other sons of rich men. And you can bet your bottom dollar they don't live on what they can earn. Unless you make a display of downright wealth you'll be judged on your merits. That's what you're driving at, isn't it?"

So they compromised on that point; and the next morning they went downtown and called upon Mr. Merriman, the great banker. He and Williams had been in many deals together, and on one historic occasion had supported prices and loaned so much ready money on easy terms as to avert a panic.

"John," said Williams senior, "my son Fitz."

"Well, sir," said Merriman, only his eyes smiling, "you don't look like a foreigner."

"I'm not," said Fitz stoutly.

"In that case," said Merriman, "what can I do for you?"

"I want to be called James Holden," said Fitz, "and to have a job in your office."

Merriman listened to the reasons with interest and amusement. Then he turned to Williams senior. "May I drive him?" he asked grimly.

"If you can," said Fitz's father. And he laughed.

Finally, it was arranged that, in his own way, Fitz was to see the world.