"He can hardly help being clever if there's anything in
heredity," Mr. Ducker went on with infinite tact, feeling
his rainbow dreams of responding to toasts at Elk banquets
drawing nearer and nearer.

Then the Evil Genius of the House of Ducker awoke from
his slumber, sat up and took notice! The house that the
friend in Winnipeg had selected for them fell into
irreparable ruins! Poor Maudie's automobile vanished at
a touch. The rosy dreams of Cincinnatus, and of carrying
the grand old Conservative banner in the face of the foe
turned to clay and ashes!

They turned the corner, and came upon Mary McSorley who
sat on the back step with the czar in her arms. Mary's
head was hidden as she kissed the czar's fat neck, and
in the general babel of voices, within and without, she
did not hear them coming.

"Speaking about heredity," Mr. Ducker said suavely,
speaking in a low voice, and looking at whom he supposed
to be the latest McSorley, "it looks as if there must be
something in it over there. Isn't that McSorley over
again? Low forehead, pug nose, bulldog tendencies." Mr.
Ducker was something of a phrenologist, and went blithely
on to his own destruction.

"Now the girl is rather pleasant looking, and some of
the others are not bad at all. But this one is surely a