Ralph was not only fond of his father, he admired him--he enjoyed the opportunity of observing him.

Daniel Touchett, to his perception, was a man of genius, and though he himself had no aptitude for the banking mystery he made a point of learning enough of it to measure the great figure his father had played.

It was not this, however, he mainly relished; it was the fine ivory surface, polished as by the English air, that the old man had opposed to possibilities of penetration.

Daniel Touchett had been neither at Harvard nor at Oxford, and it was his own fault if he had placed in his son's hands the key to modern criticism.

Ralph, whose head was full of ideas which his father had never guessed, had a high esteem for the latter's originality.