Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/201



UCAS CULLEN, Junior, had been at a large business "reconstruction" dinner that evening while his wife was entertaining her canteeners at Rigoletto; he had been one of the speakers. He ate little and drank not at all when he was to speak; but he usually drank after his speech, especially if it were a success, as it almost always was. Bennet thought, when he entered his father's room, that this night's speech had gone well. His father's man had removed Lucas's dinner clothes and handed him a dressing gown. Lucas dismissed the man when he saw his son, and he belted the dressing gown carefully about him. Lucas was shorter than his father by almost two inches but taller than his son; he had too much stomach, when one saw him without trousers and waistcoat; but he did not appear lacking in health. Indeed, vigor distinguished him only less than, a generation ago, it had marked his father. And if the younger Lucas were less rugged, yet he was a better looking man, with features which were firm and forceful enough without being belligerent or overriding; for the younger Lucas had begun to do business about the time when it ceased to be advisable for even the most masterful man to openly override his competitors and damn and defy the public. Old Lucas called his son a trimmer and said that young Lucas