quite beyond the boy's comprehension. Nor could he thoroughly understand
why the suspicion of Mr. Keeler's slight inebriety should cause such a
sensation in the Snow household. He was inclined to think the tipsiness
rather funny. Of course alcohol was lectured against often enough
at school and on one occasion a member of the senior class--a
twenty-year-old "hold-over" who should have graduated the fall
before--had been expelled for having beer in his room; but during his
long summer vacations, spent precariously at hotels or in short visits
to his father's friends, young Speranza had learned to be tolerant.
Tolerance was a necessary virtue in the circle surrounding Speranza
Senior, in his later years. The popping of corks at all hours of the
night and bottles full, half full or empty, were sounds and sights to
which Albert had been well accustomed. When one has more than once seen
his own father overcome by conviviality and the affair treated as a huge
joke, one is not inclined to be too censorious when others slip. What
if the queer old Keeler guy was tight? Was that anything to raise such a
row about?

Plainly, he decided, this was a strange place, this household of his
grandparents. His premonition that they might be "Rubes" seemed
likely to have been well founded. What would his father--his great,
world-famous father--have thought of them? "Bah! these Yankee
bourgeoisie!" He could almost hear him say it. Miguel Carlos Speranza
detested--in private--the Yankee bourgeoisie. He took their money and
he married one of their daughters, but he detested them. During his last
years, when the money had not flowed his way as copiously, the detest
grew.

"You won't say anything about Laban before Mrs. Ellis, will you,
Albert?" persisted Mrs. Snow. "She's dreadful sensitive. I'll explain by