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MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE
squarely by the shoulders. "Look at me, boy. It will take a strong man — a man whom God, not the Fates, has blessed with physical might and spiritual courage beyond his fellows — a man who when he is battered down will rise again."
"One who is not a failure," assented the other, with a sigh that tore some of the very fragments of his soul with it.
"To the weak man, failure is death, boy ; but to the strong there is no failure, not even in death. Listen, if I thought you were a weak man, I
TOM COMFORTS HIS MOTHER
would cast you myself into the pit that circumstances have brought to your door." He paused.
"But I did my very best," protested the other.
"That is the point. The man who does his best is always doing better. God wont let him die until he has done the lest. AW successful men have risen again and again; all geniuses have known what it was for courage to lapse; all heroes have known what it was to fear. Beneath yonder village lies your fortune and your future — if you are a superman you will unearth it. Let the word 'failure' fade forever from your life
with that sinking moon. Come, turn your back upon it and face the lights of the distant city, that was founded upon success!"
"Tom, my boy, glad to see you!" A tall man, past middle-age, rose and greeted the younger man who had entered his study. "Have a cigar, and sit down there in the big chair, where you will be comfortable. ' '
"Thank you, Mr. Pearce," returned Tom, lifting the tails of his dress-coat and sitting down.
"There are things you ought to know. Let's go back a bit." Mr. Pearce bit the end off his cigar and paused to light it. "Your father hasn 't been dead long enough for you to forget him ; has he ? "
A look of pain flashed across the boy 's face. ' ' I shall never forget him ; yet there is not so much that I know about him. ' '
"Well, then, there are things you ought to know, and I'm going to tell you." Mr. Pearce gave a look furtively out of the corner of his eye at the young man's determined face. "Your father was known as 'Plunger' Barrett on the Street. There was nothing particularly wrong about him, except that he was a gambler."
' ' That 's everything, ' ' murmured Tom.
"Eh?" queried Pearce, leaving his train of thought. "Oh, yes. Well, when you were born he was at his zenith — a millionaire easily. When he died, his estate barely covered his debts — pardon me for reminding you. Your mother, God bless her, stood by you, as you did by her, in that terrible time. But I want to call your attention in this way to several points. Your father's failure brought down with it one of the biggest houses in Wall Street — Franklin Bowers Company. ' '
"The director in the Black Diamond Mining Company who voted his shares against your policy of retaining me as superintendent?" cried Tom, half rising.
"That was one point that I was coming to. Franklin Bowers did not