Payson, Sr., had never taken any particular pains to alter his son’s opinion of himself.  On the whole he was more proud of him than otherwise, recognizing that while he obviously suffered from an overdevelopment of the ego and an excessive fastidiousness in dress, he was, at bottom, clearly all right and a good sort.  Still, he was forced to confess that there wasn’t much between them.  His son expressed the same thought by regretting that his father “did not speak his language.”

So, in the winter vacation when Payson, Sr., fagged from his long day at the office sought the “Frolics” or the “Folies,” Payson, Jr., might be seen at a concert for the harpsichord and viola, or at an evening of Palestrina or the Earlier Gregorian Chants.  Had he been less supercilious about it this story would never have been written—­and doubtless no great loss at that.  But it is the prerogative of youth to be arrogantly merciless in its judgment of the old.  Its bright lexicon has no verdict “with mitigating circumstances.”  Youth is just when it is right; it is cruel when it is wrong; and it is inexorable in any case.  If we are ever to be tried for our crimes let us have juries of white whiskered old boys who like tobacco, crab flakes, light wines and musical comedy.

All of which leads up to the sad admission upon our part that Payson, Jr., was a prig.  And in the very middle of his son’s priggishness Payson, Sr., up and died, and Tutt and Mr. Tutt were called upon to administer his estate.

There may be concealed somewhere a few rare human beings who can look back upon their treatment of their parents with honest satisfaction.  I have never met any.  It is the fate of those who bring others into the world to be chided for their manners, abused for their mistakes, and pilloried for their faults.  Twenty years difference in age turns many an elegance into a barbarism; many a virtue into a vice-versa.  I do not perform at breakfast for the edification of my offspring upon the mustache cup, but I chew my strawberry seeds, which they claim is worse.  My grandpapa and grandmama used to pour the coffee from their cups and drink it from their saucers and they were—­nevertheless—­rated AA1 in Boston’s Back Bay Blue Book.  And now my daughters, who smoke cigarettes, object loudly to my pipe smoke! Autre temps autres manieres.  And no man is a hero to his children.  He has a hanged-sight more chance with his valet—­if in these days he can afford to keep one.

His father’s death was a shock to Payson, Jr., because he had not supposed that people in active business like that ever did die,—­they “retired” instead, and after a discreet period of semi-seclusion gradually disintegrated by appropriate stages.  But Payson, Sr., simply died right in the middle of everything—­without any chance of a spiritual understanding—­“reconciliation” would be inaccurate—­with his son.  So, Payson, Jr., protestingly acquired by part cash and balance credit a complete suit of what he scathingly described as “the barbarous panoply of death” and, turning himself into what he similarly called a “human catafalque,” followed Payson, Sr., to the grave.