"One’s profession, Jim, ought to be one’s ruling passion. To choose a profession, choose what you most care to do in your leisure moments. That should be your business in life."
"I like about everything, Mr. Grayson, but I think I had rather write than anything else."
John Belter, a rotund youth, listening and drawing caricatures on the back of the school paper, suggested that perhaps Cleland Junior was destined to write the Great American Novel.
"It was the great American ass who first made inquiries concerning the Great American Novel."
"Oh, what a knock!" shouted Oswald Grismer, delighted.
But young Belter joined in the roars of laughter, undisturbed, saying very coolly:
"Do you mean, sir, that the Great American Novel will never be written, or that it has already been written several times, or that there isn’t any such thing?"
"I mean all three, Jack," explained Grayson, smiling. "Let me see that caricature you have been so busy over."
"What of it?" retorted the young master. "Do you think I can’t laugh at myself?"
He took the paper so reluctantly tendered:
"Jack, you _are_ a terror! You young rascal, you’ve made me look like a wax-faced clothing dummy!"
"Tribute to your faultless apparel, sir, and equally faultless features——"
A shriek of laughter from the boys who had crowded around to see; Grayson himself laughing unfeignedly and long; then the babel of eager, boyish voices again, loud, emphatic, merciless in discussion of the theme of the moment.
Into the swaying car and down the aisle came a negro in spotless white, repeating invitingly:
"First call for luncheon, gentlemen! Luncheon served in the dining car forward!"
His agreeable voice was drowned in the cheering of three dozen famished boys, stampeding.
Cleland Junior came last with the master.
"I hope you’ll have a happy holiday, Jim," said Grayson, with quiet cordiality.
"I’m crazy to see father," said the boy. "I’m sure I’ll have a good time."
At the vestibule he stepped aside, but the master bade him precede him.
And as the fair, slender boy passed out into the forward car, the breeze ruffling his blond hair, and his brown eyes still smiling with the anticipation of home coming, he passed Fate, Chance, and Destiny, whispering together in the corner of the platform. But the boy could not see them; could not know that they were discussing him.