"All
grandfathers look alike to me, whether they're great, or
great-great-great. Each one is as dead as the other. I'd rather have a
live cousin who could loan me a five, or slip me a drink. What did your
great-great dad ever do for _you_?"

"Well, for one thing," said David stiffly, "he fought in the War of the
Revolution. He saved us from the shackles of monarchical England; he
made it possible for me and you to enjoy the liberties of a free
republic."

"Don't try to tell _me_ your grandfather did all that," protested
Wyckoff, "because I know better. There were a lot of others helped. I
read about it in a book."

"I am not grudging glory to others," returned David; "I am only saying I
am proud that I am a descendant of a revolutionist."

Wyckoff dived into his inner pocket and produced a leather photograph
frame that folded like a concertina.

"I don't want to be a descendant," he said; "I'd rather be an ancestor.
Look at those." Proudly he exhibited photographs of Mrs. Wyckoff with
the baby and of three other little Wyckoffs. David looked with envy at
the children.

"When I'm married," he stammered, and at the words he blushed, "I hope
to be an ancestor."

"If you're thinking of getting married," said Wyckoff, "you'd better
hope for a raise in salary."

The other clerks were as unsympathetic as Wyckoff. At first when David
showed them his parchment certificate, and his silver gilt insignia with
on one side a portrait of Washington, and on the other a Continental
soldier, they admitted it was dead swell. They even envied him, not the
grandfather, but the fact that owing to that distinguished relative
David was constantly receiving beautifully engraved invitations to
attend the monthly meetings of the society; to subscribe to a fund to
erect monuments on battle-fields to mark neglected graves; to join in
joyous excursions to the tomb of Washington or of John Paul Jones; to
inspect West Point, Annapolis, and Bunker Hill; to be among those
present at the annual "banquet" at Delmonico's. In order that when he
opened these letters he might have an audience, he had given the society
his office address.

In these communications he was always addressed as "Dear Compatriot,"
and never did the words fail to give him a thrill. They seemed to lift
him out of Burdett's salesrooms and Broadway, and place him next to
things uncommercial, untainted, high, and noble. He did not quite know
what an aristocrat was, but he b