Then he turned to his son, and shook hands with him
also, solemnly. His eyes shone through his gold-rimmed spectacles, but his
voice was grave with feeling.
"I congratulate you, Cornelius," he said, "on possessing two sons whose
word of honor is above reproach. The smallest deviation from the outlined
schedule would have resulted disastrously. Ten minutes' tardiness at the
different points would have failed to obtain the requisite documents. Your
sons did not fail. They can be depended upon. The world is in search of men
built on those lines. I congratulate you, sir."
Cyrus was glad presently to escape to his stateroom with Cornelius. "Say,
what did you have to do?" he asked, eagerly. "Did you trot your legs off
all over town?"
"Not much, I didn't!" said Cornelius, grimly, from the depths of a big
towel. "I spent the whole day in a little hole of a room at the top of an
empty building, with just ten trips down the stairs to the ground floor to
get envelopes at certain minutes. I had not a crumb to eat nor a thing to
do, and could not even snatch a nap for fear I'd oversleep one of my dates
at the bottom.
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