Slowly the great vessel glided out upon the bright waters and grew smaller and smaller. The crowd on the wharf were beginning to break away and hurry back to business or home or society. Still Michael stood with bared head gazing, and that illumined expression upon his face.
Endicott, a mist upon his own glasses at parting from his beloved baby, saw the boy's face as it were the face of an angel; and was half startled, turning away embarrassedly as though he had intruded upon a soul at prayer; then looked again.
"Come, son!" he said almost huskily. "It's over! We better be getting back. Step in."
The ride back to the office was a silent one. Somehow Endicott did not feel like talking. There had been some differences between himself and his wife that were annoying, and a strange belated regret that he had let Starr go away for a foreign education was eating into his heart. Michael, on his part, was living over again the passing of the vessel and the blessing of the parting.
Back in the office, however, all was different. Among the familiar walls and gloomy desks and chairs Endicott was himself, and talked business. He put questions, short, sharp and in quick succession.
"What are you doing with yourself? Working? What at? H'm! How'd you get there? Like it? Satisfied to do that all your life? You're not? Well, what's your line? Any ambitions? You ought to have got some notion in college of what you're fit for. Have you thought what you'd like to do in the world?"
Michael hesitated, then looked up with his clear, direct, challenging gaze.
"There are two things," he said, "I want to earn money and buy some land in the country, and I want to know about laws."
"Do you mean you want to be a lawyer?"
"Yes."
"What makes you think you'd be a success as a lawyer?"
"Oh, I might not be a success, but I need to know law, I want to try to stop some things that ought not to be."
"H'm!" grunted Endicott disapprovingly. "Don't try the reform game, it doesn't pay. However, if you feel that way you'll probably be all right to start. That'll work itself off and be a good foundation. There's no reason why you shouldn't be a lawyer if you choose, but you can't study law selling calico. You might get there some day, if you stick to your ambition, but you'd be pretty old before you were ready to practice if you started at the calico counter and worked your way up through everything you came to. Well, I can get you into a law office right away. How soon can you honorably get away from where you are? Two weeks? Well, just wait a minute."