AC dBooks

As the new-comers entered I saw that Nessy had developed an old maid's
idea of smartness, and that my father's lawyer was more than ever like
an over-fatted fish; but my father himself (except that his hair was
whiter) was the same man still, with the same heavy step, the same loud
voice and the same tempestuous gaiety.
"All here? Good! Glad to be home, I guess! Strong and well and hearty, I
suppose? . . . Yes, sir, yes! I'm middling myself, sir. Middling, sir,
middling!"
During these rugged salutations I saw that Alma, with the bad manners of
a certain type of society woman, looked on with a slightly impertinent
air of amused superiority, until she encountered my father's masterful
eyes, which nobody in the world could withstand.
After a moment my father addressed himself to me.
"Well, gel," he said, taking me by the shoulders, as he did in Rome,
"you must have cut a dash in Egypt, I guess. Made the money fly, didn't
you? No matter! My gold was as good as anybody else's, and I didn't
grudge it.


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