Publisher's Synopsis
Events happened very rapidly with Francis Morgan that late spring morning. If evera man leaped across time into the raw, red drama and tragedy of the primitive andthe medieval melodrama of sentiment and passion of the New World Latin, FrancisMorgan was destined to be that man, and Destiny was very immediate upon him.Yet he was lazily unaware that aught in the world was stirring, and was scarcelyastir himself. A late night at bridge had necessitated a late rising. A late breakfast offruit and cereal had occurred along the route to the library-the austerely elegantroom from which his father, toward the last, had directed vast and manifold affairs."Parker," he said to the valet who had been his father's before him, "did you evernotice any signs of fat on R.H.M. in his last days?""Oh, no, sir," was the answer, uttered with all the due humility of the trainedservant, but accompanied by an involuntarily measuring glance that scanned theyoung man's splendid proportions. "Your father, sir, never lost his leanness. Hisfigure was always the same, broad-shouldered, deep in the chest, big-boned, butlean, always lean, sir, in the middle. When he was laid out, sir, and bathed, his bodywould have shamed most of the young men about town. He always took good careof himself; it was those exercises in bed, sir. Half an hour every morning. Nothingprevented. He called it religion.""Yes, he was a fine figure of a man," the young man responded idly, glancing to thestock-ticker and the several telephones his father had installed."He was that," Parker agreed eagerly. "He was lean and aristocratic in spite of hisshoulders and bone and chest. And you've inherited it, sir, only on more generouslines."Young Francis Morgan, inheritor of many millions as well as brawn, lolled backluxuriously in a huge leather chair, stretched his legs after the manner of a fullvigored menagerie lion that is overspilling with vigor, and glanced at a headline ofthe morning paper which informed him of a fresh slide in the Culebra Cut atPanama."If I didn't know we Morgans didn't run that way," he yawned, "I'd be fat alreadyfrom this existence.... Eh, Parker?"5The elderly valet, who had neglected prompt reply, startled at the abruptinterrogative interruption of the pause."Oh, yes, sir," he said hastily. "I mean, no, sir. You are in the pink of condition.""Not on your life," the young man assured him. "I may not be getting fat, but I amcertainly growing soft.... Eh, Parker?""Yes, sir. No, sir; no, I mean no, sir. You're just the same as when you came homefrom college three years ago.""And took up loafing as a vocation," Francis laughed. "Parker!"Parker was alert attention. His master debated with himself ponderously, as if theproblem were of profound importance, rubbing the while the bristly thatch of thesmall toothbrush moustache he had recently begun to sport on his upper lip.
