shot across the table and turned the long boy to
stone--all except his mouth, which opened feebly.

"Washington! Is this true?"

Washy closed his mouth, then let it slowly open again.

"My dear!" Mr. McCall's voice was alarmed. "What is it?" His eyes had
climbed up over his glasses and remained there. "What is the matter? Is
anything wrong?"

"Wrong! Read for yourself!"

Mr. McCall was completely mystified. He could not even formulate a
guess at the cause of the trouble. That it appeared to concern his son
Washington seemed to be the one solid fact at his disposal, and that
only made the matter still more puzzling. Where, Mr. McCall asked
himself, did Washington come in?

He looked at the paper, and received immediate enlightenment. Headlines
met his eyes:

GOOD STUFF IN THIS BOY.
ABOUT A TON OF IT.
SON OF CORA BATES McCALL
FAMOUS FOOD-REFORM LECTURER
WINS PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF
WEST SIDE.

There followed a lyrical outburst. So uplifted had the reporter
evidently felt by the importance of his news that he had been unable to
confine himself to prose:--

My children, if you fail to shine or triumph in your
special line; if, let us say, your hopes are bent on
some day being President, and folks ignore your proper
worth, and say you've not a chance on earth--Cheer up!
for in these stirring days Fame may be won in many ways.
Consider, when your spirits fall, the case of Washington
McCall.

Yes, cast your eye on Washy, please! He looks just like
a piece of cheese: he's not a brilliant sort of chap: he
has a dull and vacant map: his eyes are blank, his face
is red, his ears stick out beside his head. In fact, to
end these compliments, he would be dear at thirty cents.
Yet Fame has welcomed to her Hall this self-same
Washington McCall.

His mother (nee Miss Cora Bates) is one who frequently
orates upon the proper kind of food which every menu
should include. With eloquence the world she weans from
chops and steaks and pork and beans. Such horrid things
she'd like to crush, and make us live on milk and mush.
But oh! the thing that makes her sigh is when she sees
us eating pie. (We heard her lecture last July upon "The
Nation's Menace--Pie.") Alas, the hit it made was small
with Master