“That ends the liquor, Hughie,” he told me, beamingly.  “I promised her I’d eliminate it.”

He did eliminate it, save for mild relapses on festive occasions.  A more seemingly incongruous marriage could scarcely be imagined, and yet it was a success from the start.  From a slim, silent, self-willed girl Susan had grown up into a tall, rather rawboned and energetic young woman.  She was what we called in those days “intellectual,” and had gone in for kindergartens, and after her marriage she turned out to be excessively domestic; practising her theories, with entire success, upon a family that showed a tendency to increase at an alarming rate.  Tom, needless to say, did not become intellectual.  He settled down—­prematurely, I thought—­into what is known as a family man, curiously content with the income he derived from the commission business and with life in general; and he developed a somewhat critical view of the tendencies of the civilization by which he was surrounded.  Susan held it also, but she said less about it.  In the comfortable but unpretentious house they rented on Cedar Street we had many discussions, after the babies had been put to bed and the door of the living-room closed, in order that our voices might not reach the nursery.  Perry Blackwood, now Tom’s brother-in-law, was often there.  He, too, had lapsed into what I thought was an odd conservatism.  Old Josiah, his father, being dead, he occupied himself mainly with looking after certain family interests, among which was the Boyne Street car line.  Among “business men” he was already getting the reputation of being a little difficult to deal with.  I was often the subject of their banter, and presently I began to suspect that they regarded my career and beliefs with some concern.  This gave me no uneasiness, though at limes I lost my temper.  I realized their affection for me; but privately I regarded them as lacking in ambition, in force, in the fighting qualities necessary for achievement in this modern age.  Perhaps, unconsciously, I pitied them a little.

“How is Judah B. to-day, Hughie?” Tom would inquire.  “I hear you’ve put him up for the Boyne Club, now that Mr. Watling has got him out of that libel suit.”

“Carter Ives is dead,” Perry would add, sarcastically, “let bygones be bygones.”

It was well known that Mr. Tallant, in the early days of his newspaper, had blackmailed Mr. Ives out of some hundred thousand dollars.  And that this, more than any other act, stood in the way, with certain recalcitrant gentlemen, of his highest ambition, membership in the Boyne.

“The trouble with you fellows is that you refuse to deal with conditions as you find them,” I retorted.  “We didn’t make them, and we can’t change them.  Tallant’s a factor in the business life of this city, and he has to be counted with.”

Tom would shake his head exasperatingly.

“Why don’t you get after Ralph?” I demanded.  “He doesn’t antagonize Tallant, either.”