entleman lounging in solitary possession.

"'Gene Morgan!" this person exclaimed, rising with great heartiness.
"I'd heard you were in town--I don't believe you know me!"

"Yes, I do, Fred Kinney!" Mr. Morgan returned with equal friendliness.
"Your real face--the one I used to know--it's just underneath the one
you're masquerading in to-night. You ought to have changed it more if
you wanted a disguise."

"Twenty years!" said Mr. Kinney. "It makes some difference in faces, but
more in behaviour!"

"It does so!" his friend agreed with explosive emphasis. "My own
behaviour began to be different about that long ago--quite suddenly."

"I remember," said Mr. Kinney sympathetically. "Well, life's odd enough
as we look back."

"Probably it's going to be odder still--if we could look forward."

"Probably."

They sat and smoked.

"However," Mr. Morgan remarked presently, "I still dance like an Indian.
Don't you?"

"No. I leave that to my boy Fred. He does the dancing for the family."

"I suppose he's upstairs hard at it?"

"No, he's not here." Mr. Kinney glanced toward the open door and lowered
his voice. "He wouldn't come. It seems that a couple of years or so
ago he had a row with young Georgie Minafer. Fred was president of
a literary club they had, and he said this young Georgie got himself
elected instead, in an overbearing sort of way. Fred's red-headed, you
know--I suppose you remember his mother? You were at the wedding--"

"I remember the wedding," said Mr. Morgan. "And I remember your bachelor
dinner--most of it, that is."

"Well, my boy Fred's as red-headed now," Mr. Kinney went on, "as
his mother was then, and he's very bitter about his row with Georgie
Minafer. He says he'd rather burn his foot off than set it inside any
Amberson house or any place else where young Georgie is. Fact is, the
boy seemed to have so much feeling over it I had my doubts about coming
myself, but my wife said it was all nonsense; we mustn't humour Fred in
a grudge over such a little thing, and while she despised that Georgie
Minafer, herself, as much as any one else did, she wasn't going to miss
a big Amberson show just on account of a boys' rumpus, and so on and so
on; and so we came."

"Do people dislike young Minafer generally?"

"I don't know about 'generally.' I guess he gets plenty of toadying;
but there's certainly a lot of people that are glad to express their
opinions about him."

"What's the matter with him?"