ear
surprising when the fact is stated that Mr. Port was a Philadelphian.
In that city of eminent good cheer livers are developed to a degree that
only Strasburg can emulate.

Naturally, Mr. Port's views of life were bounded, more or less, by what
he could eat with impunity; yet beyond this somewhat contracted region
his thoughts strayed pleasantly afield into the far wider region of the
things which he could not eat with impunity; but which, with a truly
Spartan epicureanism, he did eat--and bravely accepted the bilious
consequences! The slightly anxious, yet determined, expression that
would appear upon Mr. Port's cleanshaven, ruddy countenance as he
settled himself to the discussion of an especially good and especially
dangerous dinner betrayed heroic possibilities in his nature which,
being otherwise directed, would have won for him glory upon the martial
field.

In minor matters--that is to say, in all relations of life not
pertaining to eating--Mr. Port was very much what was to be expected
of him from his birth and from his environment. Every Sunday, with an
exemplary piety, he sat solitary in the great square pew in St. Peter's
which had been occupied by successive generations of Ports ever since
the year 1761, when the existing church was completed. Every other day
of the week, from his late breakfast-time for some hours onward, he sat
at his own particular window of the Philadelphia Club and contemplated
disparagingly the outside world over the top of his magazine or
newspaper. At four, precisely, for his liver's sake, he rode in the
Park; and for so stout a gentleman Mr. Port was an excellent horseman.

[Illustration: Mr. Port was an excellent horseman 024]

On rare occasions he dined at his club. Usually, he dined out; for while
generally regarded as a very disagreeable person at dinners--because of
his habit of finding fault with his food on the dual ground of hygiene
and quality--he was in social demand because his presence at a
dinner was a sure indication that the giver of it had a good culinary
reputation; and in Philadelphia such a reputation is most highly prized.
An irrelevant New York person, after meeting Mr. Port at several of the
serious dinnerparties peculiar to Philadelphia, had described him as the
animated skeleton; and had supplemented this discourteous remark with
the still more discourteous observation that as a feature of a feast the
Egyptian article was to be preferred--because it di