TOO PRETTY TO BE SPOILED
on any mechanical work, and has not brains enough to do anything else. He sees his sisters go out every morning to earn a pittance which they ungrudgingly throw into the general funds at the close of each week, to the end that this loafer may be clothed in tight pants, a diagonal jacket and a fawn-colored overcoat, wherewith he may stand at a corner at nights and insult other men’s sisters. One has no patience writing of this jackanapes. He is not generally a hard drinker. If he were to get drunk he would disarrange the sweet little love-locks that are oiled down over his retreating forehead. His greatest ambition is to make a mash on some indecent woman whose worst crime is her bad taste in bestowing caresses on such a creature. If her affection is of sufficient intensity to stand his bleeding her of her filthy gains, his joy is complete. The first use he makes of his beauty-money is to hire a furnished room in a public building where he plays the spider while silly young girls play the flies.
It is really extraordinary the length of time it takes for this thing to exhaust the affection of his family. The old man generally kicks pretty early in the game, but the barnacle simply ignores anything short of the old man’s cowhide boots. His effrontery is amazing. Shame is a feeling unknown to him. He is a pretty boy, and it is the duty of all his relatives to preserve him in his pristine loveliness. He does not live in his home. He simply uses it. It is the