Three Speeds Forward
Papa was the angriest of the lot, which was all the more to his credit, as he was by no means a highflyer, and rather pooh-poohed the snobbishness of the place. In fact, he had only settled there originally because, as he said, "they all looked so clean and happy." He was a born suburbanite, and would have lapsed to shirt sleeves and a watering pot if we hadn't sternly headed him off—one of those men who spend all day in ruling a large corporation with a rod of iron, and then return home in the evening to domestic servitude. In the newspaper caricatures he was usually engaged in throttling the State, or cramming his pockets full of legislators, and you wouldn't have thought he was afraid to say "Boo!" to the cook.
I don't know why he had taken such an impulsive liking to the Vincents. As a rule, he had a lazy indifference for newcomers, and let mamma and me do all the pioneer work of making their acquaintance and sizing them up. Even in our little convulsions he was always
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