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 The boy was silent.

"Who would have a greater desire to see yo succeed? Yet, when Sam broached this service idea, what did you do? One question, one request for advice, and your father could have saved you all the worry you've been through. Of course he knew you were riding toward disaster. I knew it. Even Bill Harrison knew it. But then it was too late. You had closed the door and had shut out your best friend. You told him he wasn't wanted. You ordered him out of your affairs. You told him, in effect, that you valued the judgment of Sam more than all the counsel he could give you. And now you find that Sam's judgment was just about the rottenest egg in the basket. Don't you wish you had gone to your father at the start?"

The boy's lips quivered.

"That wasn't the only time you threw him down, Bert. The day I stepped in to see the store I read a quick finish. What would happen then I didn't know, but I knew you'd need somebody strong enough for you to lean on. I made you promise to go to your father if anything queer turned up. Instead you pushed him aside again and went to Clud. One suggestion then of what was in your mind and he'd have moved heaven and earth to have saved you from the hands of that shark. Ignoring him completely, turning your back upon the salvation he could have brought you, you went out and contracted a debt