nd his offering to the contribution box stood out
conspicuous in his weekly account.

In Bayliss' voice, even when he used his insinuating drawl and
said disagreeable things, there was something a little plaintive;
the expression of a deep-seated sense of injury. He felt that he
had always been misunderstood and underestimated. Later after he
went into business for himself, the young men of Frankfort had
never urged him to take part in their pleasures. He had not been
asked to join the tennis club or the whist club. He envied Claude
his fine physique and his unreckoning, impulsive vitality, as if
they had been given to his brother by unfair means and should
rightly have been his.

Bayliss and his father were talking together before dinner when
Claude came in and was so inconsiderate as to put up a window,
though he knew his brother hated a draft. In a moment Bayliss
addressed him without looking at him:

"I see your friends, the Erlichs, have bought out the Jenkinson
company, in Lincoln; at least, they've given their notes."

Claude had promised his mother to keep his temper today, "Yes, I
saw it in the paper. I hope they'll succeed."

"I doubt it." Bayliss shook his head with his wisest look. "I
understand they've put a mortgage on their home. That old woman
will find herself without a roof one of these days."

"I don't think so. The boys have wanted to go into business
together for a long while. They are all intelligent and
industrious; why shouldn't they get on?" Claude flattered himself
that he spoke in an easy, confidential way.

Bayliss screwed up his eyes. "I expect they're too fond of good
living. They'll pay their interest, and spend whatever's left
entertaining their friends. I didn't see the young fellow's name
in the notice of incorporation, Julius, do they call him?"

"Julius is going abroad to study this fall. He intends to be a
professor."

"What's the matter with him? Does he have poor health?"

At this moment the dinner bell sounded, Ralph ran down from his
room where he had been dressing, and they all descended to the
kitchen to greet the turkey. The dinner progressed pleasantly.
Bayliss and his father talked politics, and Ralph told stories
about his neighbours in Yucca county. Bayliss was pleased that
his mother had remembered he liked oyster stuffing, and he
complimented her upon her mince pies. When he saw her pour a
second cup of coffee for herself and for Claude at the end of
dinne