An Unmarried Father by Floyd Dell

THAT April morning Norman Overbeck drove his father to the station and put him on the early train for Springfield. The elder Overbeck -- J. J. Overbeck -- was going to argue a case before the supreme court. Norman, his unworthy son, as he felt himself to be, drove on to the office. Parking his car in front of the Overbeck building until he should want it again that afternoon, according to the leisurely custom of Vickley on the Mississippi, he went up the dingy, old-fashioned stairway to the Overbeck and Overbeck offices. In the hall he glanced up for a moment at the new sign with the name repeated, replacing the old one of "J. J. Overbeck, Attorney-at-Law. " It was less than a year since Norman had been admitted to the bar and been made a member of the law-firm. When his father wasn't with him he sometimes glanced up at that sign, expecting to find in it some reassurance, something that would make him feel in himself the dignity and power which were associated with his father's name. He never quite got it. Most of the time it seemed to him that all he had so far done was to make costly mistakes.

"Good morning, Miss Patterson," he said to the stenographer. "Is my mail ready?"