CHAPTER IV
FOURTEEN YEARS LATER
“DAD” leaned right luxuriously against the bar of the Eagle House, a brimming whisky-skin in one hand, a long and ill-smelling cigar in the other.
His shining frock coat was thrown back wide from a vest that had once been white. A slouch hat was pushed far back on his head, and a mass of gray-white hair fell carelessly over his forehead. His somewhat bleared eyes gazed loftily upon the habitués of the place, and his aristocratic, but slightly reddened nose was curved in mild contempt at something one of them happened at that moment to be saying.
Dad was an imposing figure. There was not lacking those who declared he was even yet a fine figure of a man—even though a covert grin went with the praise.
And more than one woman was wont to follow, with a gaze almost as admiring as it was disapproving, his stately thrice-a-day progress down Main Street from his riverside cottage to the Eagle barroom.
No one in Ideala was so ignorant of Dad’s habits as to imagine for a moment that three daily visits to the Eagle entailed only three drinks thereat. Indeed, his regular evening sojourn at that hospitable tavern was often prolonged until closing time, and his return bedward was not infrequently under a highly necessary escort.
Still, though he might—and continuously did—drink with them, Dad could never be induced to regard the Eagle’s other patrons as his equals; either mentally or morally. And he took no pains to cloak his feelings.
Which did not add appreciably to his popularity among the convivial band.
To-day—on his first morning visit—Dad was unwontedly superior in his bearing toward his fellow tipplers.