CHAPTER I

BRIAN REBELS

"You needn't repeat it," said Brian with a flash of his quiet eyes.
"This time, Kenny, I mean to stay disinherited."

Kennicott O'Neill stared at his son and gasped. The note of permanency
in the chronic rite of disinheritance was startling. So was something
in the set of Brian's chin and the flush of anger burning steadily
beneath the dark of his skin. Moreover, his eyes, warmly Irish like
his father's, and ordinarily humorous and kind, remained unflinchingly
aggressive.

With the air of an outraged emperor, the older man strode across the
studio and rapped upon his neighbor's wall for arbitration.

"Garry may be in bed," said Brian,

"And he may not." It was much the same to Kenny.

He was a splendid figure--that Irishman. His gorgeous Persian slippers
curled at the toes and ended in a pair of scarlet heels. The
extraordinary mandarin combination of oriental magnificence and the
rags he affected for a bathrobe, hung from a pair of shoulders
noticeably broad and graceful. If he wore his frayed splendor with a
certain picturesque distinction, it was the way he did all things, even
his delightful brogue which was if anything a shade too mellifluous to