"You have not spoken
of him before. I was not aware that there was any such person in
existence."
"You are not to blame for that," replied Stanton with a shrug.
"You might have been one of the friends of the family and scarcely
have learned the fact. Indeed, poor man, he only about half exists,
for he has been so long overshadowed by his fashionable wife and
daughter, that he is but a sickly plant of a man."
Van Berg saw that the greeting received by Mr. Mayhew from his wife
and daughter was very undemonstrative to say the least, and that
then the gentleman quickly disappeared, as if fearing that he might
be in the way.
"From my very limited means of judging," Van Berg remarked, "I
cannot see anything more objectionable in the head of the family
than in the other members."
"Your phrase, 'head of the family,' as applied to Mr. Mayhew, makes
me smile. His name figures at the head of the large family bills,
but scarcely elsewhere with much prominence. You will soon learn,
if you remain here, that Mr. Mayhew imbibes rather more than is
good for him, so I may as well mention the disagreeable fact at
once. But to do the poor man justice, I suppose he drinks to keep
his spirits up to the ordinary level, rather than from any hope
of becoming a little jolly occasionally.
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