Papa Wolf seized both of Ernest's hand. "No! Really! Ernest, you really will go on with the professorship! Then I am satisfied. But we must not let this work be in vain. This child of your mind, Ernest, it must be recorded. It will help you in your professorship, eh?"
Ernest nodded. "It's really a great thing, father. Roger has a wonderful mind."
"He's got a good mind, yes, but I'm asking you where would he have been all these years without my boy? O Ernie! Ernie! You've taken ten years off me! Now, you let me think. I'll sit and watch this engine of yours. You go along about your work, Ernie." And Ernest, a tired look in his eyes, went along as he was bidden.
It was dinner time before the tour of inspection was done. Mamma Wolf spent the morning, after a nap, helping the girls to prepare a huge dinner. She and Elsa wept a little on each other's necks, and Mamma Wolf promised to take Dick to her heart and love him as another son. And somehow Elsa put full faith in Ernest's bringing his father around.
No one talked business or politics at dinner. There were many details of the camp life to be told and many stories of the Von Mindens that invariably brought Papa Wolf to the verge of apoplexy with laughter. Ernest never had been more charming than he was now. And by some magic of his own, he drew Dick out to tell the story of his turquoise mining. Like almost any story of desert endeavor it was full of drama, of quiet heroism, and of weird humor. Papa and Mamma Wolf hung breathless on every word of it.
"Himmel!" exclaimed Papa at the end, "if I were thirty years younger, I'd like just such adventuring!" The others looked at one another and smiled.
When the long dinner hour was over, Papa Wolf lighted his meerschaum. "And now let's look at that engine again. You should come and see it, Mamma. Run by sunshine and almost as silent as the sun and powerful like it. Wonderful! Wonderful!"
"You've hardly looked at the alfalfa, Papa," said Ernest.
"Plenty of time for that. One thing at a time. Come along, Dean. If you should explain that engine through to me two or three times more, I'll understand it. Ernest and Roger, they never thought to take old Papa to see the working model at the University. They thought because I was a fool about the working drawings, I knew nothing. Come on, Dean! Come along."
Seated on two up-ended boxes before the engine, the two gray headed men spent the afternoon. The Dean could have been enticed away to examine the alfalfa and the pumping system. But not Papa. He went out at intervals to look at the absorber and to read the thermometer at the oil storage pit, then back to the engine.