s make for both realism and true comedy.

"But, Jack, you took me too literally! It is hardly in keeping with your
position! You--"

"Why, I thought that the only way to know the whole business was to
play every part. Didn't you ever deliver packages in person in your
early days?"

"I can't say that I did!" the father admitted wryly.

"Then it seems to me that you missed one of the most entertaining and
instructive features," Jack continued. "You cannot imagine the majestic
feminine disdain with which you may be informed that a five-cent bar of
soap should be delivered at the back door instead of the front door. The
most indignant example was a red-haired woman who was doing her own work
in a flat. She fairly blazed. She wanted to know if I didn't know what
dumb-waiters were for."

"And what did you say?" the father asked wearily; for the ninth John
Wingfield had a limited sense of humor.

"Oh, I try, however irritating the circumstances, to be most courtly, for
the honor of the store," said Jack. "I told her that I was very sorry and
I would speak to you in person about the mistake."

"You mean that you admitted who you were?"

"Oh, no! The red-haired woman laughed and took the package in at the
front door," Jack responded. Anybody in Little Rivers would have
understood just how he looked and smiled and why it was that the
red-haired woman laughed.

"Jack--now, really, Jack, this is not quite dignified!" expostulated the
father. "What do you think your ancestor would say to it?"

"I suspect that he would have made an even more ingratiating bow to the
lady than I could," said Jack, thoughtfully. "They had the grand manner
better developed in his day than in ours."

In the ensuing weeks John Wingfield, Sr. dwelt in a kind of infernal
wonder about his son. He was cheered when some friend of his world who
had met Jack in the garb of his caste, as fitted by Burleigh, would say:
"Fine, strapping son you have there, Wingfield!" He was abashed and
dumfounded when Jack announced that he had taken Mamie Devore, who sold
culinary utensils in the basement, out to luncheon with her "steady
company," Joe Mathewson, driver of one of the warehouse trucks.

"They were a little awed at first," Jack explained, "but they soon
became natural. I don't know anything pleasanter than making people feel
perfectly natural, do you? You see, Joe and Mamie are very real, father,
and most businesslike; an ambitious, upstanding pair. Th