His two redeeming qualities were his affection for his wife and
his respect for his word. He had no child of his own, and Corinne,
though respectful never showed him any affection. He had sent Jack
to a Southern school and college, managing meanwhile the little
property his father had left him, which, with some wild lands in
the Cumberland Mountains, practically worthless, was the boy's
whole inheritance, and of late had treated him as if he had been
his own son.

As to his own affairs, close as he sailed to the wind in his money
transactions--so close sometimes that the Exchange had more than
once overhauled his dealings--it was generally admitted that when
Arthur Breen gave his WORD--a difficult thing often to get--he
never broke it. This was offset by another peculiarity with less
beneficial results: When he had once done a man a service only to
find him ungrateful, no amount of apologies or atonement
thereafter ever moved him to forgiveness. Narrow-gauge men are
sometimes built that way.

It was to be expected, therefore, considering the quality of
Duckworth's champagne and the impression made on Jack by his
uncle's outburst, that the ride down town in the cab was marked by
anything but cheerful conversation between Breen and his nephew,
each of whom sat absorbed in his own reflections. "I didn't mean
to be hard on the boy," ruminated Breen, "but if I had picked up
everybody who wanted to know me, as Jack has done, where would I
be now?" Then, his mind still clouded by the night at the club (he
had not confined himself entirely to champagne), he began, as was
his custom, to concentrate his attention upon the work of the day