Winnebago roads were a wallow of mud in the spring and
fall and a snow-lined trench in the winter. The family was of the town,
and yet apart from it. The Gorys knew about golf, and played it in far
foreign playgrounds when the rest of us thought of it, if we thought of
it at all, as something vaguely Scotch, like haggis. They had oriental
rugs and hardwood floors when the town still stepped on carpets; and by
the time the rest of the town had caught up on rugs the Gorys had gone
back to carpets, neutral tinted. They had fireplaces in bedrooms, and
used them, like characters in an English novel. Old Madame Gory had a
slim patent leather foot, with a buckle, and carried a sunshade when she
visited the flowers in the garden. Old Gideon was rumoured to have wine
with his dinner. Gideon Junior (father of Giddy) smoked cigarettes with
his monogram on them. Shroeder's grocery ordered endive for them, all
blanched and delicate in a wicker basket from France or Belgium, when we
had just become accustomed to head-lettuce.

Every prosperous small American town has its Gory family. Every small
town newspaper relishes the savoury tid-bits that fall from the rich
table of the family life. Thus you saw that Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Gory,
Jr., have returned from California where Mr. Gory had gone for the polo.
Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Gory, Jr., announce the birth, in New York, of a
son, Gideon III (our, in a manner of speaking, hero). Mr. and Mrs.
Gideon Gory, Jr., and son Gideon III, left to-day for England and the
continent. It is understood that Gideon III will be placed at school in
England. Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Gory, accompanied by Madame Gory, have gone
to Chicago for a week of the grand opera.

Born of all this, you would have thought that young Giddy would grow up
a somewhat objectionable young man; and so, in fact, he did, though not
nearly so objectionable as he might well have been, considering things
in general and his mother in particular. At sixteen, for example, Giddy
was driving his own car--a car so exaggerated and low-slung and with
such a long predatory and glittering nose that one marvelled at the
expertness with which he swung its slim length around the corners of our
narrow tree-shaded streets. He was a real Gory, was Giddy, with his
thick waving black hair (which he tried for vain years to train into
docility), his lean swart face, and his slightly hooked Gory nose. In
appearance Winnebago pronounced him foreign looking--a