The Tragedy of a Snob


I

The first twenty-three years of Andrew Webb's life were passed in that
tranquillity of mind and body induced by regular work, love of exercise,
and a good digestion. He lived in a little flat in Harlem, with his
widowed mother and a younger sister who was ambitious to become an
instructor of the young and to prove that woman may be financially
independent of man. At that time Andrew's salary of thirty dollars a
week, earned in a large savings-bank of which he was one of many
book-keepers, covered the family's needs. Mr. Webb had died when his son
was sixteen, leaving something under two thousand dollars and a
furnished flat in Harlem. For a time the outlook was gloomy. Andrew left
school and went to work. Good at figures, stoically steady, he rose by
degrees to command a fair remuneration. A brother of Mrs. Webb,
currently known as "Uncle Sandy Armstrong," lived in miserly fashion on
the old homestead in New Jersey. Occasionally he sent his sister a
ten-dollar bill. Mrs. Webb, believing him to be as straitened as
herself, albeit without a family, never applied to him for assistance.
Twice a year she dutifully visited him and put his house in order. Her
children rarely could be induced to accompany her. They detested their
fat garrulous unkempt uncle, and only treated him civilly out of the
goodness of their hearts and respect for their mother. On Christmas Day
he invariably dined with them, and his meagre presents by no means
atoned for his atrocious table-manners.

The family in the flat was a happy one, despite the old carpets, the
faded rep furniture, the general air of rigid economy, and the