"You flatter me," says Eggy; "but you give me courage to venture still further. Now we come to the Slav." He calls up a thin, peak-nosed, wild-eyed gink who's wearin' a greasy waiter's coat and a coffee-stained white shirt. "From a forty-cent table d'hôte restaurant," goes on Eggleston. "An alert, quick-moving, deft-handed person—valuable qualities, you will admit. Develop those in his grandson, give him the training of a National Academy of Technical Arts, bring out the repressed courage and self-confidence, and you will produce—well, let us say, the Chief Pilot of the Aëro Transportation Department, the man to whom Congress will vote an honorary pension for winning the first Washington-to-Buenos Ayres race in a three-hundred-foot Lippmann Stabilized quadroplane, carrying fifty passengers and two tons of mail and baggage."
Mr. Hubbard gazes squint-eyed at the waiter and sniffs.
"Come, now, who knows?" insists Eggy. "These humble people whom you so despise need only an opportunity. Can we afford to shut them out? Don't we need them as much as they need us?"
"Mr. Ham," says J. Q., shuttin' his jaws grim, "my motto is, 'America for Americans!'"
"And mine," says Eggy, facin' him defiant, "is 'Americans for America!'"
"You're a scatterbrained visionary!" snaps J. Q. "You and your potential grandfather rubbish! What about the grandsons of good Americans? Do you not reckon them in at all in your——"
"Whe-e-e-e! Whoop!" comes from the hall, the front office door is kicked open joyous, and in comes a tall, light-haired, blue-eyed young gent, with his face well pinked up and his hat on the back of his head. He's arm in arm with a shrimpy, Frenchy lookin' party wearin' a silk lid and a frock coat. They pushes unsteady through Eggy's illustrious ancestor bunch and comes to parade rest in the center of the stage.
"Winthrop!" gasps Mr. Hubbard.
"Eh?" gasps the young gent, starin' round uncertain until he locates J. Q. Then he makes a stab at straightenin' up. "'S a' right, Governor," he goes on, "'s a' right. Been givin' lil' lu-luncheon to for'n rep'sen'tives. Put 'em all out but An-Andorvski, and he's nothing but a fish—deuced Russian fish. Eh, Droski?"
Believe me, with J. Q. Hubbard turnin' purple in the gills, and all them cheap foreigners lookin' on bug-eyed, it wa'n't any humorous scene. With the help of the waiter and the longshoreman they loads Winthrop and his friend into a taxi, and Pinckney starts with 'em for the nearest Turkish bath. The grandfather debate is adjourned for good.