LUCAS CULLEN, Senior, received information of this extraordinary bit of intelligence soon after his arrival at his son's home.
"Arrant nonsense!" he pronounced emphatically, when Lucas, Junior, reported it; and the old man did not let it interrupt his railing at his son for abiding in such quarters as that apartment.
"You'd think we'd not an acre of land in the family to see you coop yourself up on a shelf on top of eight other roosts full of cackling idiots;" so the elder Lucas referred to the lower apartments and to their occupants whose voices he imagined he heard in spite of the vaunted deadening of floors and ceilings. For, having arrived in no very pleasing mood, he welcomed every circumstance which gave him cause for irritation. Unable to relieve himself about the matters actually weighing upon his mind, it was convenient to find annoyances to scold about,—such as the fact that his son had not a double bed in his house and each member of the family was supplied with a separate suite.
"Fads and pretenses! Separate rooms for man and wife!—What was that tomfoolery from Sir—Sir—" he suddenly demanded when he had exhausted the bedroom subject.
"Horace Clebourne," his son supplied the name of their English correspondent.
