At this casual observation I experienced almost a shock. Perhaps I have a too ready fancy, but I had pictured young McClintick as a splendid and beloved son cut down by a horrible accident in the bloom of youth.
“So?” I queried. “Why,—what was the matter with him? He certainly had a sad enough end.”
“Come through the fighting on the other side all right, and then got shot,” my chance acquaintance commented. “That’s the way it is,” he added. Then, as if to modify his criticism of the victim, he said, “Oh, I don’t know; Rolly wasn’t so bad, I suppose. They had their place here when we got into the war, only it wasn’t anything like the way you see it now; that whole left wing and both towers were added. Yes, the old man made quite a place of it. He sure knew how to spend it.”
By way of prolonging our casual chat I offered him a cigarette and lighted one myself. And so we both lingered for still a few minutes, he with a foot on the running board, I resting my arms on the steering wheel.
“You connected with this other estate?” I queried.
“Oh yes.”
“What was the matter with young Mr. McClintick?” I ventured.
“Well, I don’t know as there was anything much. I remember once he was in some kind of a raid—gambling place down in Atlantic City, I think it was—and he gave the name of the family’s butler. They came up here after the butler, I remember.” He recalled the incident with a chuckle. “Worked out all right,” he added. “The McClinticks paid the fine and I heard they gave the butler a good fat tip for his wounded feelings. I guess Pete was satisfied. Oh, Rolly wasn’t so bad, I suppose; guess he was like a good many millionaires’ sons.”
“Just a little skittish,” I commented.
“Hm, ’bout the size of it. Then there was some trouble when he was drafted for service; I don’t know just what it was. Old man tried to get him off on the grounds of his being in war work already—leather. But they didn’t put it over. I guess Rolly made out all right enough on the other side. I was over there myself when he was drafted. Let’s see, Rolly would have been—he must have been—maybe a little over thirty when he was killed. Funny, huh, how a fellow goes through a war and then comes back and gets bumped off by some fool of a hunter.”