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144 Stuyvesant, sullenly smoking a cigarette, lolled against a show-case across the room, dropping ashes every minute or two into the mouth of a fragile and, for the time being, priceless vase that happened to be conveniently located near his elbow.

Mr. Moody adjusted his monocle and eyed his matronly visitors in a most unfeeling way.

"Ah,—good awfternoon, Mrs. Millidew. Good awfternoon, Mrs. Smith-Parvis," he said, and then catching sight of an apparently neglected customer in the offing, beckoned to a smart looking salesman, and said, quite loudly:

"See what that young man wants, Proctor."

The young man, who happened to be young Mr. Smith-Parvis, started violently,—and glared.

"Stupid blight-ah!" he said, also quite loudly, and disgustedly chucked his cigarette into the vase, whereupon the salesman, in some horror, grabbed it up and dumped the contents upon the floor.

"You shouldn't do that, you know," he said, in a moment of righteous forgetfulness. "That's a peach-blow—"

"Oh, is it?" snapped Stuyvesant, and walked away.

"That is my son, Mr. Moody," explained Mrs. Smith-Parvis quickly. "Poor dear, he hates so to shop with me."

"Ah,—ah, I see," drawled Mr. Moody. "Your son? Yes, yes." And then, as an afterthought, with a slight elevation of one eyebrow, "Bless my soul, Mrs. Smith-Parvis, you amaze me. It's incredible. You cawn't convince me that you have a son as old as— Well, now, really it's a bit thick."