the pride of wealth and the snobbery of station. Their home, facing
Central Park, stood for elegance and restraint. There were no other
children for ten years after the son's birth, then came the two
sisters, which domestic arrangement probably proved an important
factor in deciding the rest of our story. From early boyhood Clifford
was orderly, obedient, studious and quietly industrious. He made no
trouble for parents or teachers--other mothers always spoke of him as
"good." He was thirteen when his only sinful escapade happened. Some
of the Third Avenue boys shared the playgrounds in the park with
Clifford's crowd. They all smoked, some chewed and the more self-
important of them swore, and thereby, one day, our Fifth Avenue young
hopeful was contaminated. It was a savory-smelling wad of fine-cut. It
burned, a little went the wrong way and it strangled, but the joy of
ejecting a series of amber projectiles was Clifford's. Another
mouthful was ready for exhibition purposes when some appreciative
admirer enthusiastically clapped our boy between the shoulder-blades
and most of his mouth's contents, fluid and solid, was swallowed.
Somehow Clifford got home, but landed in a wilted heap on the big
couch, chalk-white, and sick beyond expression. The doctor was called
and, discovering the cause, made him helpfully sicker. The next
morning Clifford's father gravely offered to give him $500.00, when he
was twenty-one, if he would not taste tobacco again until that time.
Either the memory of first-chew sensations or the doctor's ipecac, or
the force of habit, or something, kept him from ever tasting it again.

Later, Clifford went to Columbia and was quietly popular with the
quieter fellows. It would seem that had any little devils not been
strained out of his blood by his long line of Huguenot ancestry, they
had followed the fate of the fine-cut, for no one who knew Clifford
van der Veere was ever anxious about the probity of his conduct. He