Besides, thinking about college was a waste of time. Even had he been willing to submit again to the same routine, he hadn't the means to re-educate himself, and he could not ask his father to pay his expenses twice over. Mr. Weston, Vance knew, regarded him as an investment which ought already to be bringing in something. After the boy's illness his father had recognized the necessity of his taking a holiday; and being a man who always did things handsomely when his doing so was visible to others, he had agreed, besides paying the trip to New York and back, and Vance's board at the Tracys', to allow him a hundred dollars a month for four months. Vance had received half the sum before starting, with a warning to be careful and not make a fool of himself; and his father's gesture, which became generally known on Mapledale Avenue, was thought very liberal, and worthy of Lorin Weston.

But Vance, at the same time, was given to understand that as soon as his summer's rest was over he was to "make good." His father, having reluctantly come round to the idea of his going into journalism instead of real estate, had obtained the promise of a job for him on the Free Speaker, and was already swaggering at club meetings about the nuisance of having a literary fellow in the family. "Problem most of you fellows aren't up against, I guess? Fact is, Mrs. Weston has a way-back culture complex in her family, and it's a microbe you can't seem to eradicate." This was all very well—and nobody liked swaggering better than the silent Lorin Weston; but Vance knew that he liked to have his swagger justified with the least possible delay.