In her agony, the poor mother waved aloft the clutched copy of Achievements and seared him with a devastating sidewise glare. "Can't you hear the Pewter-Walsbergs gloating and snickering when they find out that your father's first name is Ephraim and that he used to be called 'Eph' for short and that he started life as a day-laborer and that then he worked at the trade of a bricklayer and that secretly all these years he's been paying his dues in a dirty old union and carrying a dirty old union card--a thing which even I, knowing his common tastes as I did, never suspected before! But here's a picture of it printed in facsimile to prove it!" And now she beat with a frenzied forefinger on a certain page of the offending periodical. "And then he goes on to tell how with his own hands he made some of the very bricks that went into the office-building where his office is now! And then--then--then--oh, how can I ever hold up my head again?--then he says that when we were first married we had to live on twelve dollars a week and do all our own housework and that I even used to wash out his undershirts!" "Oh, mommer!" This was the senior Miss Golightly, bemoaning their ruin. "And well may you say 'Oh, mommer'--with the invitations out for your formal début next week!" "Oh, popper!" exclaimed the stricken Miss Golightly. In the shock of the moment she had temporarily forgotten about her scheduled début. "Oh, popper, how could you do such a thing to me!" "And Evelyn here expecting to join the Junior League--what chance has the poor child now? How can she ever forgive you?" "Oh, oh, oh!" screamed the younger Miss Golightly, not addressing anyone in particular. It was at this point that Mr. Golightly had grabbed his hat and clamped it on his degraded head and fled from this house of vain and utter repinings. Late at night he crept in, almost as a burglar might creep in, and sought the seclusion of his room, not daring again to face his three women. Early next morning before any of them had risen to intercept him with her further lamentations, he crept out again and at his office spent a haunted forenoon. Every time his telephone buzzed he flinched. And when, following lunch for which he had absolutely no appetite, the girl on the private switchboard rang to tell him Mrs. Golightly herself was on the line he flinched more than ever as he told the exchange to plug in the connection, then braced himself for the worst. If his daughters were resolved never again to speak to him, so be it. At least he would take the blow standing. If it was to be a separation, a divorce even, so be that, too. He had only himself to blame. "Hello," he said, wanly; and awaited the explosion.