Mrs. Weber, when seen as well as heard, proved to be extremely fat, though sprightly. She was powdered just as lavishly as was her daughter, but in a softer shade of mauve. She had fine dark myopic eyes; her thick black brows met and dipped under the bridge of her pince-nez. Her bosom was too enormous to seem even motherly. She had a screaming laugh which was probably one of the charms that had won her Mr. Weber and an elegant home, for she laughed most assiduously during and between jokes. “Cheery ole dame is Mom, isn’t that right, Ed?” said Miss Weber, throwing one of her pretty arms half way round the vast shoulders of her Mom. It was a simple home. Pop might well be proud of it. He shewed, however, no signs of pride—no signs, in fact, of anything. He did not speak more than once or twice a day. Even at meals he sat half turned from the table with musing eyes fixed on one square of the carpet. He had a wrinkled thin neck like a tortoise’s. His face was wrinkled and full of grievances. He explored the inside of his cheeks almost constantly with his tongue and sometimes with his finger. Often he assisted his tongue and finger by picking his teeth with any implement that came handy. His one conversation with Edward ran thus: “Well, young feller, how much better d’you like this country than yer own?” “No better,” replied Edward nervously. He hastened to add apologetically, “You see, I have an affection for England because it’s my home—I mean my homeland, as it were. Just the same as you’d like America best even if you came to England——” Mr. Weber laughed and set his toothpick to work on rather an inaccessible tooth. “Reckon I shouldn’t think anything of England,” he said in a final voice. “Well, that’s what I mean,” said Edward, growing rather red. “That’s rather what I feel about America, when you compare it with England.” Pop leaned forward and leveled his toothpick at Edward’s face. “Now, see here, son,” he said, showing only two of his left hand teeth. Miss Weber shrieked, “Aw cut it out, Pop, and you forget it too, Ed. Pop’s a reg’lar whizz at politics.”