"Must be a hot book he's writin'!" thinks I, and forgets his existence until the next time. The summer moseys along, me bein' busy with this and that, goin' and comin' back, until here the other day when things is dullest Pinckney calls up from the club and announces that he's got a new customer for me, someone very special. "Visitin' royalty, or what?" says I. "Winthrop Hubbard," says he impressive. "The guy that invented squash pie?" says I. "No, no!" peeves Pinckney. "The son of Joshua Q. Hubbard, you know." "I get you," says I. "The Boston cotton mill plute that come so near bitin' a chunk out of the new tariff bill. But I thought he was entertainin' the French Ambassador or someone at his Newport place?" Well, he was; but this is only a flyin' trip. Seems Son Winthrop had fin'ly been persuaded to begin his business career by bein' made first vice president of the General Sales Company, that handled the export end of the trust's affairs. So, right in the height of his season, he's had to scratch his Horse Show entries, drop polo practice, and move into a measly six-room suite in one of them new Fifth-ave. hotels, with three hours of soul-wearin' officework ahead of him five days out of seven. He'd been at the grind a month now, and Mother had worried so about his health that Joshua Q. himself had come down to observe the awful results. Meanwhile Josh had been listenin' to Pinckney boostin' the Physical Culture Studio as the great restorer, and he'd been about persuaded that Son ought to take on something of the kind. "But he wants to see you first," says Pinckney. "You understand. They're rather particular persons, the Hubbards,--fine old Plymouth stock, and all that." "Me too," says I. "I'm just as fussy as the next--old Ellis Island stock, remember." "Oh, bother!" says Pinckney. "Will you come up and meet him, or won't you?" It wa'n't reg'lar; but as long as he's a friend of Pinckney's I said I would. And, say, Joshua Q. looks the part, all right. One of these imposin', dignified, well kept old sports, with pink cheeks, a long, straight nose, and close-set, gray-blue eyes. They're the real crusty stuff, after all, them Back Bay plutes. For one thing, most of 'em have been at it longer. Take J. Q. Hubbard. Why, I expect he begun havin' his nails manicured before he was ten, and has had his own man to lay out his dinner clothes ever since he got into long pants. Nothin' provincial about him, either. Takes his trip across every winter reg'lar, and I suppose he's as much at home on Unter den Linden, or the Place de Concord or Neva Prospect as he is on Tremont-st. And, sittin' there sippin' his hock and seltzer, gazin' languid out on Fifth-ave., he gives kind of a classy tone to one of the swellest clubs in New York. There ain't any snobbish frills to him, though. He gets right down to brass tacks. "McCabe," says he, "what class of persons do you have as patrons."