“Fine!  That makes me feel easier.  I was afraid you might be going soft, with so much money to spend.”

“How I ever spent that much—­”

“Never mind that.  It’s gone.  However, we’ll try another basis.  I’d thought of an allowance, but I don’t quite like the notion.  Hal, I’m going to give you your own money.”

“My own money?  I didn’t know that I had any.”

“Well, you have.”

“Where did I get it?”

“From our partnership.  From the old days on the road.”

“Rather an intangible fortune, isn’t it?”

“That old itinerant business was the nucleus of the Certina of to-day. 
You had a profit-sharing right in that.  You’ve still got it—­in this. 
Hal, I’m turning over to you to-day half a million dollars.”

“That’s a lot of money, Dad,” said the younger man soberly.

“The interest doesn’t come to fifty thousand dollars a year, though.”

“More than half; and that’s more than plenty.”

“Well, I don’t know.  We’ll try it.  At any rate, it’s your own.  Plenty more where it comes from, if you need extra.”

“I shan’t.  It’s more than generous of you—­”

“Not a bit of it.  No more than just, Boyee.  So let the thanks go.”

“All right, sir.  But—­you know how I feel about it.”

“I guess I know just about how you and I feel toward each other on anything that comes up between us, Boyee.”  There was a grave gentleness in Dr. Surtaine’s tone.  “Well, there are the papers,” he added, more briskly.  “I haven’t put all your eggs in one basket, you see.”

Going over the certificates Hal found himself possessed of fifty thousand dollars in the stock of the Mid-State and Great Muddy Railroad:  an equal sum in the Security Power Products Company; twenty-five thousand each in the stock of the Worthington Trust Company and the Remsen Savings Bank; one hundred thousand in the Certina Company, and fifty thousand in three of its subsidiary enterprises.  Besides this, he found five check-books in the large envelope which contained his riches.

“What are these, Dad?” he asked.

“Cash on deposit in local and New York banks.  You might want to do some investing of your own.  Or possibly you might see some business proposition you wanted to buy into.”

“I see some Security Power Products Company certificates.  What is that?”

“The local light, heat, and power corporation.  It pays ten per cent.  Certina never pays less than twenty.  The rest is all good for six, at least and the Mid-and-Mud averages eight.  You’ve got upwards of thirty-seven thousand income there, not counting your deposits.  While you’re looking about, deciding what you’re going to do, it’ll be your own money and nobody else’s that you’re spending.”

“Do you think many fathers would do this sort of thing, Dad?” said Hal warmly.

“Any sensible one would.  I don’t want to own you, Boyee.  I want you to own yourself.  And to make yourself,” he added slowly.