The Hare and the Tortoise

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Brothers and classmates, John and Sidney Drake are opposites. John is studious, a plodder, while Sidney thinks only of his own pleasure. While John plods along working hard for success on graduation day, Sidney springs lightly here and there like the festival hare. The result is that Sidney Drake shines at football, but fails to receive his diploma. Richard Drake, the millionaire father of the boys, resolves to start them in his steel mills and learn the business from the ground up. "If I must toil with my hands," exclaims Sidney, "I shall not work." Both boys love beautiful Marion Lee, John secretly, but no less earnestly, Sidney, with that glittering superficiality that marks him. John has always stepped aside that his more brilliant brother may have his way. More and more does Sidney Drake waste his time in riotous living, and when the father of the boys dies, the result is that the steel mills go to the more steady son, John, while Sidney is given a hundred thousand dollars. Sidney squanders his money in the wheat pit, and returns to his brother with a plea for funds. Desperate, because the money is not forthcoming, Sidney says, "John, you love Marion. You can have her if you will give me money." John draws a check, saying, "I shall give you the money in order to save Marion from you." The girl overhears the pact, and from that minute holds Sidney Drake in contempt. Sidney squanders his newly-acquired wealth just as he did his inheritance, and in the end becomes penniless and a wanderer, while John Drake, who has been held in such disdain, wins Marion.