“Well, we don’t hit it off somehow, he and I.” John’s tone was as gloomy as ever. “I feel sometimes as if I might as well stop trying to please him. Makes you envy a chap like Billy Benson who’s always done about as he pleased and now is absolutely his own master. I’m six months older than Billy, but my being of age doesn’t make the least difference in the way my father treats me, and now I’ve done my level best this summer, and that hasn’t made the least difference either.”