Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. THE DETERMINATION OF YOUTH HOWEVER much Harold Mason might have wondered had he seen his father's face as he wrote that letter to his confidential man in New York, his wonder would have been as naught compared to his father's could that wise parent have seen his son's face and heard the muttered imprecation that issued from his lips as he shut the door of his own little office and flung himself solidly into his desk chair; for Harold Mason was out of sorts, shockingly out of sorts for him. It was not so much with his father that he waged a mental warfare as with himself and circumstances. "The Governor's all right," he assured himself honestly, "but why couldn't this all have happened in October instead of July?That's what I'd like to know, and blow MacDonald anyway !" He gazed out the window as though he rather expected the dirty, drab roofs to answer him. And perhaps they did, for presently he sat up and the scowl vanished from between his eyes. "I'm a bally ass," he muttered—"a downright Harvard graduate ass—the worst species known to science. Here I've been for three years hanging to the tail of the Governor's kite and just when a ripping opportunity comes along for me to show him I am good for something besides keeping this chair warm and doing general office-work, I'm not keen for it. Hal Mason," he squared his shoulders and his jaw came forward again—"Hal Mason, you've got to cut out the girls!" Delivering this resolve, valiantly, his chin receded, and an infinitely tender light came into his blue eyes as he stared unseeing at the little clock ticking its life away on his desk. His memory slipped back three days. The cold, insensate walls of his little room were transformed into foliage. The air became heavy with incense ; the sunlight dimmed to candle-glow....