"Not too keen for it, eh? Feel like a crook about to go to jail, don't you? Well, well. That's a pretty howdy-do. I understood from your father that you were anxious to start at the bottom here and learn the steel industry inside out. He said you just tormented him all the time to be allowed to come here and work. I guess that was just one of Henry's pipe dreams, eh?"
Harold rebelled. "I never told my father I wanted to work here," he blurted out. Then, realizing that this was a little tough on Uncle Peter, he added quickly, "I don't want to work anywhere for a while. I want to go to college—to Tate."
The steel man started in surprise. He puffed on his cigar and studied this surprising situation. He ventured, "So you want to go to college, eh? Where did you get that idea?"
Harold got up steam at once, thus encouraged. Here, of all places, he was encountering tolerance for his cherished ambition! He had expected to be handled very gruffly by Uncle Peter. He had had visions of himself in overalls pushing a wheelbarrow full of coke a half hour after passing through the door of the Thatcher Steel Works. He thought any mention of college on these premises would result in his being boiled in molten steel or something equally terrible.
