Mr. Pett did not read old books himself,
but he liked to be among them, and it is proof of his pessimism
that he had not tried the library first. To his depressed mind it
had seemed hardly possible that there could be nobody there.
He stood outside the door, listening tensely. He could hear
nothing. He went in, and for an instant experienced that ecstatic
thrill which only comes to elderly gentlemen of solitary habit
who in a house full of their juniors find themselves alone at
last. Then a voice spoke, shattering his dream of solitude.
"Hello, pop!"
Ogden Ford was sprawling in a deep chair in the shadows.
"Come in, pop, come in. Lots of room."
Mr. Pett stood in the doorway, regarding his step-son with a
sombre eye. He resented the boy's tone of easy patronage, all the
harder to endure with philosophic calm at the present moment from
the fact that the latter was lounging in his favourite chair.
Even from an aesthetic point of view the sight of the bulging
child offended him. Ogden Ford was round and blobby and looked
overfed. He had the plethoric habit of one to whom wholesome
exercise is a stranger and the sallow complexion of the confirmed
candy-fiend. Even now, a bare half hour after breakfast, his jaws
were moving with a rhythmical, champing motion.
"What are you eating, boy?" demanded Mr. Pett, his disappointment
turning to irritability.
"Candy."
"I wish you would not eat candy all day.
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