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“Now, Whitney, the time has come, my boy, when you must take thought and decide what rle in this world’s—what rle in the world—in fact, to what rle you feel your talents are urging you, if you get what I mean. ”

“You mean what job I’ll get after graduation?”

“No, no, no! The Dibbleses have had enough of jobs! I have money enough for all of us. I have had to toil and moil. But the Dibbleses are essentially an artistic family. Your grandfather loved to paint. It is true that circumstances were such that he was never able to paint anything but the barn, but he had a fine eye for color—he painted it blue and salmon-pink instead of red; and he was responsible for designing the old family mansion on Clay Street—I should never have given it up except that the bathrooms were antiquated—not a single colored tile in them.

“It was he who had the Moorish turret with the copper roof put on the mansion, when the architect wanted a square tower with a pagoda roof. And I myself, if I may say so, while I have not had the opportunity to develop my creative gifts, I was responsible for raising the fund of $267,800 to buy the Rembrandt for the Zenith Art Institute, and the fact that the Rembrandt later proved to be a fake, painted by a scoundrel named John J. Jones, was no fault of mine. So—in fact—if you understand me—how would you like to go to Paris, after graduation, and study art?”

“Paris!”

Whit had never been abroad. He pictured Paris as a series of bars, interspersed with sloe-eyed girls (he wasn’t quite sure what sloe eyes were, but he was certain that the eyes of all Parisian cuties were sloe), palms blooming in January, and Bohemian studios where jolly artists and lively models lived on spaghetti, red wine, and a continuous singing of “Auprs de Ma Blonde. ”

“Paris!” he said; and, “That would be elegant, sir!”

“My boy!” T. Jefferson put his puffy palm on Whit’s shoulder in a marvelous impersonation of a Father about to Send His Son Forth into the Maelstrom of Life, “I am proud of you.

“I hope I shall live to see you one of the world’s great pictorial artists, exhibiting in London, Rome, Zenith, and elsewhere, and whose pictures will carry a message of high ideals to all those who are dusty with striving, lifting their souls from the sordid struggle to the farther green places.

“That’s what I often tell my sales manager, Mr. Mountgins—he ought to get away from mere thoughts of commerce and refresh himself at the Art Institute—and the stubborn jackass, he simply won’t increase the sale of Korn Krumbles in southern Michigan! But as I was saying, I don’t want you to approach Paris in any spirit of frivolity, but earnestly, as an opportunity of making a bigger and better—no, no, I mean a bigger and—a bigger—I mean a better world! I give you my blessings. ”

“Great! Watch me, Dad!”

When, after Christmas, Whit’s classmates reveled in the great Senior Year pastime of wondering what they would do after graduation, Whit was offensively smug.

“I got an idea,” said his classmate, Stuyvesant Wescott, who also came from Zenith. “Of course it’s swell to go into law or bond selling—good for a hundred thou. a year—and a fellow oughtn’t to waste his education and opportunities by going out for lower ideals. Think of that poor fish Ted Page, planning to teach in a prep school—associate with a lot of dirty kids and never make more’n five thou. a year! But the bond game is pretty well jammed. What do you think of getting in early on television? Millions in it!”