other achievements?"

"I had a forest play acted at the summer jinks."

"What did you get for it?"

"Glory."

"And you used to swim, and you have essayed to sit a horse!" John Bellew
set his glass down with unnecessary violence. "What earthly good are
you anyway? You were well put up, yet even at university you didn't play
football. You didn't row. You didn't--"

"I boxed and fenced--some."

"When did you box last?"

"Not since, but I was considered an excellent judge of time and
distance, only I was--er--"

"Go on."

"Considered desultory."

"Lazy, you mean."

"I always imagined it was an euphemism."

"My father, sir, your grandfather, old Isaac Bellew, killed a man with a
blow of his fist when he was sixty-nine years old."

"The man?"

"No, your--you graceless scamp! But you'll never kill a mosquito at
sixty-nine."

"The times have changed, oh, my avuncular! They send men to prison for
homicide now."

"Your father rode one hundred and eighty-five miles, without sleeping,
and killed three horses."

"Had he lived to-day, he'd have snored over the course in a Pullman."

The older man was on the verge of choking with wrath, but swallowed it
down and managed to articulate:

"How old are you?"

"I have reason to believe--"

"I know. Twenty-seven. You finished college at twenty-two. You've
dabbled and played and frilled for five years. Before God and man, of
what use are you? When I was your age I had one suit of underclothes. I
was riding with the cattle in Coluso. I was hard as rocks, and I could
sleep on a rock. I lived on jerked beef and bear-meat. I am a better
man physically right now than you are. You weigh about one hundred and
sixty-five. I can throw you right now, or thrash you with my fists."

"It doesn't take a physical prodigy to mop up cocktails or pink tea,"
Kit murmured deprecatingly. "Don't you see, my avuncular, the times have
changed. Besides, I wasn't brought up right. My dear fool of a mother--"

John Bellew started angrily.

"--As you described her, was too good to me; kept me in cotton wool and
all the rest. Now, if when I was a youngster I had taken some of those
intensely masculine vacations you go in for--I wonder why you didn't
invite me sometimes? You took Hal and Robbie all over the Sierras and on
that Mexico trip."

"I guess you were too Lord-Fauntleroyish."

"Your fault, avuncular, and my dear--er--mother's. How was I to know
the hard? I was only a chee-ild.