nervously defective children; the physically best was the morally
worst and died a criminal.

Doctor Jim lived on with his habits unchanged, his laugh, only, losing
something in volume and more in infectiousness. Still proud of his
health he preached the gospel of good whiskey well drunk, never
sensing his part in the tragedy of his own fireside. He was nearly
eighty when the stroke came which bereft him of any possibility of
understanding, or of knowing remorse. He had laid his wife away some
years previously and for months he lingered on paralyzed, demented, in
the big, empty house, cared for by an old negro couple, hardly
recognizing Mabel when she came twice a year, but never forgetting
that, "Whiskey won't hurt anybody."




CHAPTER V

THE NERVOUSLY DAMAGED MOTHER


His name is not Lawrence Adams Abbott. The surname really is that of
one of America's first families. He, himself, is among the few living
of a third generation of large wealth.

It was an early-summer afternoon and Dr. Abbott--for he was a graduate
of Cornell Medical--was standing at one of the train gates of the
Grand Central Station in New York. As he waits apart from the small
crowd assembled to welcome, he attracts observing attention. His face