"Talk of his successful son," snorted my father, whom I had fairly
roused. "He is not fit to black his father's boots. He has his
thousands of pounds a year, while his father had perhaps three
thousand shillings a year towards the end of his life. He is a
successful man; but his father, hobbling about Paleham Street in his
grey worsted stockings, broad brimmed hat and brown swallow-tailed
coat, was worth a hundred of George Pontifexes, for all his
carriages and horses and the airs he gives himself."
"But yet," he added, "George Pontifex is no fool either." And this
brings us to the second generation of the Pontifex family with whom we
need concern ourselves.
CHAPTER II
OLD Mr. Pontifex had married in the year 1750, but for fifteen years
his wife bore no children. At the end of that time Mrs. Pontifex
astonished the whole village by showing unmistakable signs of a
disposition to present her husband with an heir or heiress. Hers had
long ago been considered a hopeless case, and when on consulting the
doctor concerning the meaning of certain symptoms she was informed
of their significance, she became very angry and abused the doctor
roundly for talking nonsense.
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