"Pleasure, hell!" snorted Painless, helping himself to a drink. "Say,
honest, how do you fellows that have business up here stick it out? It
gives me the willies!"
One of the Japanese peered into the tent and made a sign.
Painless Porter dropped his voice.
"A dope already," said he. He put on his air, and went out. As Bob and
Baker crossed the enclosed space, they saw him in conversation with a
gawky farm lad from the plains.
"I shore do hate to trouble you, doctor," the boy was saying, "and hit
Sunday, too. But I got a tooth back here--"
Painless Porter was listening with an air of the deepest and gravest
attention.
VII
The charlatan had babbled; but without knowing it he had given Bob what
he sought. He saw all the reasons for what had heretofore been obscure.
Why had he been dissatisfied with business opportunities and successes
beyond the hopes of most young men?
How could he dare criticize the ultimate value of such successes without
criticizing the life work of such men as Welton, as his own father?
What right had he to condemn as insufficient nine-tenths of those in the
industrial world; and yet what else but condemnation did his attitude of
mind imply?
All these doubts and questionings were dissipated like fog.
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