ustrious son has left a tooth or
two on the arena. Fred's run is on everybody's lips, and we as the
authors of his being are made much of. Mr. Leggatt, the banker, works
his way up to me through the crowd at great personal distress, for he
is a fat man, in order to say, with an enthusiastic shake of the hand:

"Great boy that of yours; splendid grit; I must have him when he
graduates."

I sputter many thanks confusedly. Here is a strange development truly.
I had been hoping, as you may remember, to be able to go to Mr.
Leggatt, at Fred's graduation, and to ask for a clerkship for my boy on
the plea of his steadiness and sterling common sense; and now the
solicitation has come to me on the score of his grit as a foot-ball
kicker. The world seems just a little topsy-turvy, and I am not quite
sure whether to laugh or to cry.

We got home at last somehow; and here I am sitting in my library trying
to collect my faculties and to appreciate the honor which has been
thrust upon me--the honor of being the father of a famous half-back.
To tell the truth, it sticks in my crop just a little and does not
relish to the extent which would seem appropriate. Indeed I am not
altogether sure whether I can see a distinction between being the
father of a famous half-back and the father of a famous toreador or
famous prize-fighter. I know that Leggatt and one or two others, to
whom I ventured to expose my qualms on the way home, declared them
preposterous, and that the game was magnificent discipline for both
mind and body. Come to that, the vicissitudes of a matador are
magnificent discipline for both mind and body. So are those of a
gladiator. Yet I have my doubts whether Leggatt would like to be the
father of either. Nevertheless, although he is a citizen of far
greater consideration than I, he gave me to understand that he would be
proud to be described in the newspapers as the father of a famous
half-back, and to see a son of his handed down to posterity in the
public prints as a prize animal of this description.

I fear there must be a screw loose somewhere in my make-up as a father
and a philosopher. You remember the case of the burglars? It did not
seem to me worth while to go downstairs and expose myself to be shot.
Yet Josephine felt differently on the point.

Moreover, I have never been able to understand why it is courageous or
meritorious to be an amateur Alpine climber, whereas many are fain to
admire the bea