Because--" and his voice was vibrant with determination, "I don't care what happens to me personally.

I don't care whether five minutes after I have made it, I lose every cent of what I have worked for.

But I do care about this; I'm going to make good to my father's memory.

I'm going to be able to stand before a mirror and look myself straight in the eye, knowing that I bucked up against trouble, that it nearly whipped me, that it took the unfairest advantage that Fate can take of a man in allowing my father to die before I could fully right myself in his eyes, but that if there is a Justice, if there is anything fair and decent in this universe, some way he'll know, some way he'll rest in peace, with the understanding that his son took up the gauntlet that death laid down for him, that he made the fight, and that he won!" "_Bon_--good!" Old Ba'tiste leaned over the foot of the bed.

"My Pierre--he would talk like that.