him without any advice from George; and retired to his library, going so
far as to lock the door audibly.

"Second childhood!" George muttered, shaking his head; and he thought
sadly that the Major had not long to live. However, this surmise
depressed him for only a moment or so. Of course, people couldn't be
expected to live forever, and it would be a good thing to have someone
in charge of the Estate who wouldn't let it get to looking so rusty that
riffraff dared to make fun of it. For George had lately undergone the
annoyance of calling upon the Morgans, in the rather stuffy red velours
and gilt parlour of their apartment at the hotel, one evening when Mr.
Frederick Kinney also was a caller, and Mr. Kinney had not been tactful.
In fact, though he adopted a humorous tone of voice, in expressing his,
sympathy for people who, through the city's poverty in hotels, were
obliged to stay at the Amberson, Mr. Kinney's intention was interpreted
by the other visitor as not at all humorous, but, on the contrary,
personal and offensive.

George rose abruptly, his face the colour of wrath. "Good-night, Miss
Morgan. Good-night, Mr. Morgan," he said. "I shall take pleasure in
calling at some other time when a more courteous sort of people may be
present."

"Look here!" the hot-headed Fred burst out. "Don't you try to make me
out a boor, George Minafer! I wasn't hinting anything at you; I simply
forgot all about your grandfather owning this old building. Don't you
try to put me in the light of a boor! I won't--"

But George walked out in the very course of this vehement protest, and
it was necessarily left unfinished.

Mr. Kinney remained only a few moments after George's departure; and as
the door closed upon him, the distressed Lucy turned to her father.
She was plaintively surprised to find him in a condition of immoderate
laughter.

"I didn't--I didn't think I could hold out!" he gasped, and, after
choking until tears came to his eyes, felt blindly for the chair from
which he had risen to wish Mr. Kinney an indistinct good-night. His
hand found the arm of the chair; he collapsed feebly, and sat uttering
incoherent sounds.

"Papa!"

"It brings things back so!" he managed to explain, "This very Fred
Kinney's father and young George's father, Wilbur Minafer, used to do
just such things when they were at that age--and, for that matter, so
did George Amberson and I, and all the rest of us!" And, in spite of his
exhaustion,