quarter-limit poker or any limit they say, why I'd like to have
'em sit at the president's card-table."

When the diversions of the Friends of the Ace were concluded for that
afternoon, Georgie invited his chief supporter, Mr. Charlie Johnson, to
drive home with him to dinner, and as they jingled up National Avenue in
the dog-cart, Charlie asked:

"What sort of men did you run up against at that school, George?"

"Best crowd there: finest set of men I ever met."

"How'd you get in with 'em?"

Georgie laughed. "I let them get in with me, Charlie," he said in a tone
of gentle explanation. "It's vulgar to do any other way. Did I tell you
the nickname they gave me--'King'? That was what they called me at that
school, 'King Minafer."

"How'd they happen to do that?" his friend asked innocently.

"Oh, different things," George answered lightly. "Of course, any of
'em that came from anywhere out in this part the country knew about
the family and all that, and so I suppose it was a good deal on account
of--oh, on account of the family and the way I do things, most likely."

Chapter IV

When Mr. George Amberson Minafer came home for the holidays at
Christmastide, in his sophomore year, probably no great change had taken
place inside him, but his exterior was visibly altered. Nothing about
him encouraged any hope that he had received his come-upance; on the
contrary, the yearners for that stroke of justice must yearn even
more itchingly: the gilded youth's manner had become polite, but his
politeness was of a kind which democratic people found hard to bear. In
a word, M. le Due had returned from the gay life of the capital to
show himself for a week among the loyal peasants belonging to the
old chateau, and their quaint habits and costumes afforded him a mild
amusement.

Cards were out for a ball in his honour, and this pageant of the
tenantry was held in the ballroom of the Amberson Mansion the night
after his arrival. It was, as Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster said of
Isabel's wedding, "a big Amberson-style thing," though that wise Mrs.
Henry Franklin Foster had long ago gone the way of all wisdom, having
stepped out of the Midland town, unquestionably into heaven--a long
step, but not beyond her powers. She had successors, but no successor;
the town having grown too large to confess that it was intellectually
led and literarily authoritated by one person; and some of these
successors were not invited to the bal