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The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells
page 89 of 555 (16%)

V.


AT the same moment young Corey let himself in at his own door
with his latch-key, and went to the library, where he found
his father turning the last leaves of a story in the Revue
des Deux Mondes. He was a white-moustached old gentleman,
who had never been able to abandon his pince-nez for the
superior comfort of spectacles, even in the privacy of his
own library. He knocked the glasses off as his son came
in and looked up at him with lazy fondness, rubbing the
two red marks that they always leave on the side of the nose.

"Tom," he said, "where did you get such good clothes?"

"I stopped over a day in New York," replied the son,
finding himself a chair. "I'm glad you like them."

"Yes, I always do like your clothes, Tom," returned the
father thoughtfully, swinging his glasses, "But I don't
see how you can afford 'em, I can't."

"Well, sir," said the son, who dropped the "sir" into
his speech with his father, now and then, in an old-
fashioned way that was rather charming, "you see,
I have an indulgent parent."

"Smoke?" suggested the father, pushing toward his son
a box of cigarettes, from which he had taken one.
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