wboys of
Texas, and tell us to our faces that we ought to try Papa Lapham by a
jury of his peers. It ought to be stopped--it ought, really. The
Bostonian who leaves Boston ought to be condemned to perpetual exile."

The son suffered the father to reach his climax with smiling patience.
When he asked finally, "What are the characteristics of Papa Lapham
that place him beyond our jurisdiction?" the younger Corey crossed his
long legs, and leaned forward to take one of his knees between his
hands.

"Well, sir, he bragged, rather."

"Oh, I don't know that bragging should exempt him from the ordinary
processes. I've heard other people brag in Boston."

"Ah, not just in that personal way--not about money."

"No, that was certainly different."

"I don't mean," said the young fellow, with the scrupulosity which
people could not help observing and liking in him, "that it was more
than an indirect expression of satisfaction in the ability to spend."

"No. I should be glad to express something of the kind myself, if the
facts would justify me."

The son smiled tolerantly again. "But if he was enjoying his money in
that way, I didn't see why he shouldn't show his pleasure in it. It
might have been vulgar, but it wasn't sordid. And I don't know that it
was vulgar. Perhaps his successful strokes of business were the
romance of his life----"

The father interrupted with a laugh. "The girl must be uncommonly
pretty. What did she seem to think of her father's brag?"

"There were two of them," answered the son evasively.

"Oh, two! And is the sister pretty too?"

"Not pretty, but rather interesting. She is like her mother."

"Then the pretty one isn't the father's pet?"

"I can't say, sir. I don't believe," added the young fellow, "that I
can make you see Colonel Lapham just as I did. He struck me as very
simple-hearted and rather wholesome. Of course he could be tiresome;
we all can; and I suppose his range of ideas is limited. But he is a
force, and not a bad one. If he hasn't got over being surprised at the
effect of rubbing his lamp."

"Oh, one could make out a case. I suppose you know what you are about,
Tom. But remember that we are Essex County people, and that in savour
we are just a little beyond the salt of the earth. I will tell you
plainly that I don't like the notion of a man who has rivalled the hues
of nature in her wildest haunts with the tints of his mineral paint;
but I don't say the