any
shame, it's mine, for by all the standards of decency, a livery-stable
is a hundred times more respectable than a warehouse full of
whisky. You made your money honestly, but ours has been wrung out of
the poor, the sick, the ragged, the distressed. The whisky business
is a rotten business, Tom, rotten!"

"It was whisky that bought an ambassadorship for my mother's
brother; it was whisky that paid for the French count my sister
married; it was whisky that sent me to college. Whisky,
whisky--always whisky!"

"I never thought twice about it before, but I've done some tall
thinking today. I'm done with the Porters, root and branch.
Elizabeth and I are going to start a little family tree, of our own,
and we're not going to root it in a whisky barrel, either.
We're--we're--"

"There, there!" said Dad. "It's all right, Blakely, boy. It ain't so
bad as you think. You ain't going to throw your mother over and your
mother ain't going to throw you over. I take it that all mothers are
alike; they love their sons. Naturally, you're sore and disappointed
now, but I reckon that mother of yours is sore and disappointed,
too. As for our going to Del Monte, I never heard of a Middleton yet
that cut and ran at a time like this, and Elizabeth and I ain't
going to start any precedent."

"No, my boy, we're going to stay right here, and you're going to
stay here with us. There's lots of good times ahead for you and
Elizabeth, and in the meantime, I want you to be mighty sweet to
that mother of yours. She's the only mother you've got, boy. You
don't know what it means for us old folks to be disappointed in our
children. Now, don't disappoint me, lad. You be nice to that mother
of yours, and keep on loving Elizabeth, and it will all come right,
you see if it don't. If it don't come one way, it will come another;
you can take my word for it." As if Dad knew anything about it. He
thought then that every woman possessed a sweet mind and a loving
heart; he thinks so now. But one glimpse of Blakely's mother was
enough for me. She had a heart of stone; everything about her was
militant, uncompromising; her eyes were of a piercing, steely blue;
the gowns she wore were insolently elegant; she radiated a superb
self-satisfaction. When she looked at you through her lorgnette, you
felt as if you were on trial for your life. When she ceased looking,
you knew you were sentenced to mount the social scaffold. If it
hadn't been for Blakely and Dad,