out his whole firm frame a heavy mechanical strength, a
look as of something that did something rapidly and accurately when set
going--cut or cracked or ground or smashed something better and faster
than it had ever been cut or cracked or ground or smashed before, and
would take your arms and legs off if you didn't stand well back from it;
it was only in Bohm's eye and lips that you saw he wasn't made entirely
of brass and iron, that champagne and shoulders decolletes received a
punctual share of his valuable time. And there was Kitty, too, just the
wife for Bohm, so soon as she could divorce her husband, to whom she had
united herself before discovering that all she married him for, his old
Knickerbocker name, was no longer in the slightest degree necessary for
social acceptance; while she could feed people, her trough would be well
thronged. Kitty was neat, Kitty was trig, Kitty was what Beverly would
call "swagger "; her skilful tailor-made clothes sheathed her closely
and gave her the excellent appearance of a well-folded English umbrella;
it was in her hat that she had gone wrong--a beautiful hat in itself,
one which would have wholly become Hortense; but for poor Kitty it
didn't do at all. Yes, she was a well folded English umbrella, only
the umbrella had for its handle the head of a bulldog or the leg of a
ballet-dancer. And these were the Replacers whom Beverly's clear-sighted
eyes saw swarming round the temple of his civilization, pushing down
the aisles, climbing over the backs of the benches, walking over each
other's bodies, and seizing those front seats which his family had
sat in since New York had been New York; and so the wise fellow very
prudently took every step that would insure the Replacers' inviting him
to occupy one of his own chairs. I had almost forgotten little Gazza,
the Italian nobleman, who sold old furniture to new Americans. Gazza was
not looking at the old furniture of Kings Port, which must have filled
his Vatican soul with contempt; he was strolling back and forth in
the street, with his head in the air, humming, now loudly, now softly
"La-la, la-la, E quando a la predica in chiesa siederia, la-la-la-la;"
and I thought to myself that, were I the Pope, I should kick him into
the Tiber.

When Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael came back with the keys and their
custodian, Bohm was listening to the slow, clear words of Charley, in
which he evidently found something that at length interested him--a
l