s or more
between the Clanworthys and the Maxwells, but a little thing like that
never made any difference to Muggles or his immediate connections. Was
not the family note-paper emblazoned with the counterfeit presentment
of a Stork Rampant caught by the legs and flopping its wings over a
flattened fish-basket; and did not Muggles's cigarette-case,
cuff-buttons and seal ring bear a similar design? And the wooden mantel
in the great locked library, and which was opened and dusted twice a
year--the books, not the mantel--did it not support a life-sized
portrait of the family bird done in wood, with three diminutive
storklets clamoring to be fed, their open mouths out-thrust between
their mother's breast and the top edge of the fish-basket, enwreathed
by a more than graceful ribbon bearing the inscription, "We feed the
hungry"--or words to that effect?

None of these evidences of wealth and ancestry, it must be said, ever
impressed the group of scoffers gathered about the wood fire of the
"Ivy" in his college days, or about the smart tables at the "Magnolia
Club" in his post-graduate life. To them he was still "Mixey," or
"Muddles," or "Muggles," or "The Goat," depending entirely upon the
peculiar circumstances connected with the mixing up or the butting in.

To his credit be it said the descendant of earls and high-daddies never
lost his temper at these onslaughts. If Bender, or Podvine, or little
Billy Salters pitched into him for some act of stupidity--due entirely
to his misguided efforts to serve some mutual friend--Muggles would
argue, defend and protest, but the discussion would always end with a
laugh and his signing the waiter's check and ordering another one for
everybody.

"Why the devil, Muggles, did you insist last night on that Boston
girl's riding home from the theatre in the omnibus, you goat?"
thundered Podvine one morning at the club, "instead of letting her--"

"My dear fellow," protested Muggles, "it was much more comfortable in
the omnibus, and--"

"--And broke up her walk home with Bobby, you idiot! He had to take the
owl train home, and she won't see him for a month. Didn't you know they
were engaged?"

"No--"

"Of course you didn't, Muggles, but you could have seen it in her face
if you'd looked. You always put your foot in it clean up to your pants'
pocket!"

"You've been at it again, have you, Muggles?" burst out Bender that
same night "Listen to the Goat's last, boys. Jerry wanted to b