Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
Youth Challenges
By
"The Little Moment of Happiness," "The High Flyers," "Sudden Jim," "The
Source," "The Hidden Spring," etc.
Bonbright Foote VI arose and stood behind the long table which servedhim as a desk and extended his hand across it. His bearing was that ofa man taking a leading part in an event of historic importance.
"My son," said he, "it gratifies me to welcome you to your place inthis firm." Then he smiled. When Bonbright Foote VI smiled it was asthough he said to himself, "To smile one must do thus and so with thefeatures," and then systematically put into practice his instructions.It was a cultured smile, one that could have been smiled only by agentleman conscious of generations of correct antecedents; it was anaristocratic smile. On the whole it was not unpleasant, though soexcellently and formally done.
"Thank you, father," replied Bonbright Foote VII. "I hope I shall be ofsome use to you."
"Your office is ready for you," said his father, stepping to a doorwhich he unlocked with the gravity of a man laying a corner stone."This door," said he, "has not been opened since I took my place at thehead of the business—since I moved from the desk you are to occupy tothe one in this room. It will not be closed again until the timearrives for you to assume command. We have—we Footes—always regardedthis open door as a patent token of partnership between father and son."
Young Foote was well acquainted with this—as a piece of his family'sregalia. He knew he was about to enter and to labor in the office ofthe heir apparent, a room which had been tenantless since the death ofhis grandfather and the consequent coronation of his father. Such wasthe custom. For twelve years that office had been closed and waiting.None had ventured into it, except for a janitor whose weekly dustingsand cleanings had been performed with scrupulous care. He knew thatBonbright Foote VI had occupied the room for seventeen years. Beforethat it had stood vacant eleven years awaiting for Bonbright Foote VIto reach such age and attainments as were essential. Young Footerealized that upon the death of his father the office would be closedagain until his son, Bonbright Foote VIII, should be equipped, by timeand the university founded by John Harvard, to enter as he was enteringto-day. So the thing had been done since the first Bonbright Footeinvested Bonbright Foote II with dignities and powers.
Father and son entered the long-closed office, a large, indeed astately room. It contained the same mahogany table at which BonbrightFoote II had worked; the same chairs, the same fittings, the samepictures hung on the walls, that had been the property of the firstcrown prince of the Foote dynasty. It was not a bright place,suggestive of liveliness or gayety, but it was decorously inviting—aplace in which one could work with comfort and satisfaction.
"Let me see you at your desk," said the father, smiling again. "I havelooked forward to seeing you there, just as you will look forward toseeing YOUR son there."
Bonbright sat down, wondering if his father had felt oppressed as HEfelt oppressed at this moment. He had a feeling of stepping from oneexistence into another, almost of stepping from one body, one identity,to another. When he sat at that desk he would be taking up, not his owncareer, but the career of the entity who had occupied this