"That's the point," observed the Idiot. "We'd have to have a manager, and for my part I shouldn't relish being managed. What chance would Mrs. Idiot have against a manager ahead of an army of servants of such magnitude? We have more than we can keep in subjection as we stand now, with this one small house. If it wasn't for Mary, who keeps an eye on things, I don't know what we should do."
"Well, I am glad you're rich, pa," said Tommy; "you can increase my allowance."
"And I can have a pony," lisped Mollie.
"Alas! Poor children!" cried the Idiot. "That is the saddest part of wealth. Instead of bringing the little ones up ourselves, to be wholly fashionable it will be necessary to sublet the contract to a committee of tutors and governesses. The obligations of social life hereafter will require that we meet our children by appointment only, and that when they dine they shall eat in solitary grandeur until they become so polished in manners that their parents may once more formally welcome them at table. All the good old democratic ways of the domestic republic are now to be set aside. Tommy, instead of yelling for a buckwheat-cake at the top of his lungs, upon our return will request a butler in choicest French to hand him a pâté de foie gras; and dear little Mollie will have to give up attracting the waitress' attention by shying an olive-pit at her and imperiously summon her by means of an electric buzzer set to buzzing with her toe."
"Mercy! What a picture of woe!" cried Mr. Pedagog.
"Not altogether true, is it?" suggested the Doctor.
"Have you ever visited Newport?" asked the Idiot.
"No," said the Doctor, "never."
"Well, don't," said the Idiot, "unless you wish to look upon that picture—a picture of life whence childhood is abolished; where blasé little swells take the place of lively small boys, and diminutive grand duchesses, clad in regal garb, have supplanted the little daughters who bring smiles and sunshine into the life of the common people. Ah, my friends," the Idiot continued, with a shake of his head, "there are sad sights to be seen in this world, but I know of none sadder than those rich little scions of the American aristocracy in whose veins the good red blood of a not very remote ancestry has turned blue through too much high living and too little real living."
"I should think you'd take that hundred and forty thousand dollars and throw it into the sea," said Mr. Brief.