at the Works? It was because he thought the Thatchers should long ago have done something for the Lambs that Henry had had no qualms in approaching Peter Thatcher in regard to giving Harold a start in business. Perhaps Peter would take a notion to the boy and do handsomely by him.
It was true that the Thatchers seemed to have mastered the peculiarly American knack of starting with nothing and finishing with a great deal. Peter had started as a wheel-barrow boy in the very plant which he now owned and which had made him a fortune. Peter Thatcher was self-made and was very proud of it. John Thatcher, his brother, had entered a Cleveland bank as an office boy and was now its president. Another brother, James, was head of a dye works near New York, having entered the city as a youth with all his belongings in his pocket handkerchief.
Yes, the Thatchers had made money. And now Peter Thatcher, at the age of sixty-three, was endeavoring to abandon gradually his life-long toil and enjoy some of the fruits of his labors. And he was finding it rather difficult. The Winter previous, he had journeyed to Palm Beach and had sickened of the gilded Florida resort in a week. He missed the furnace back in Cleveland. He fretted because he honestly believed his very efficient
