The Connecticut labor press., 1919-09-13

middle-aged people and the young people into his house the manager makes his romance as young as he con. Youth will indeed be served, and it's profound instinct is to be not only scornfully amused but vaguely an gered by middle-aged romance. So, standing beside his mother, George was disturbed by a sudden impression, coming upon him out of nowhere, so far as he could detect, that her eyes were brilliant, that she was graceful and youthful-in a word that she was romantically lovely.
 He had one of those curious moments that seem to have neither a cause nor any connection with actual things. There was nothing in either her looks or her manner to explain Georges un- comfortable feeling; and yet it in- creased, becoming suddenly a vague resentment, as if she had done some thing unmotherly to him.
 The fantastic moment passed; and even while it lasted he was doing his duty, greeting two pretty girls with whom he had grown up as people say, and warmly assuring them that he re- membered them very we1l-an assur- ance which might have surprised them 'fn anybody but Georgie Minafer !" It seemed unnecessary, since he had spent many hours with them no longer than the preceding August. They had with them their parents and an uncle from out of town; and George negli- gently gave the parents the same as- cITr~ hn ho@ crSx- &ha but murmured another form of greet ing to the out-of-town uncle, whom he had never seen before. This per son George absently took note of as 'queer-looking duck" Undergradu- ates had not yet adopted bird" It was period previous to that in which sophomore would have thought of the Sharon girls uncle as a "queer- looking bird" or, perhaps, a funny face bird." In Georges time every hu- man male was to be defined at pleas ure as duck" but duck was not spoken with admiring affection. as in its former. feminine use to signify a "dear"-on the contrary, "dfick" i'm piled the speakers personal detach- ment and humorous superiority. An
 
 George felt when his mother, with a gentle emphasis, interrupted his in terchange of courteSies with the | nieces to present him to the queer looking duck, their uncle. This en- phasis of Isabel's. though slight, en- abled George to perceive that she con- sidered the Queer-looklng duck per son of some importance; but it was | far from enabling him to understand why. The duck parted his thick and lougish black hair on the side; his tie was a forgetful-lOoking thing, and his coat, though it fitted a good enough middle-aged figure, no product of this year, or of last year either. Observing only his unfa shiOnable hair, his preOccupied tie and his old coat, the Olympic George set him down as a queer-lOoking duck, and having thus completed his portrait took no inter- | est in him.
 l The Sharon girls passed on, taking the queer-looking duck with them, and | George became pink with mortif1ca- tion as his mother called his attention to a white-bearded guest waiting to shake his hand. This was Georges | great-uncle, old John Minafer: 1t was old Johns boast that in spite of his connection by marriage with the Am persons he never had worn and never would wear a swaller-tail coat. Mem bers of his family had exerted their | influence uselessly - at eighty-nine conservative people seldom form rad | ical new habits, and old John wore his Sunday suit' of black broadcloth to the Anderson ball. The coat was square, with skirts to the knees; old 1 John called 1t a 'Prince Albert" and was well enough pleased with it, but his great-nephew considered it the next thing to an insult.
 The large room had filled, and so had the broad hall and the rooms on the other side of the hall, where there were tables for whist. The imported