Charles and Porter managed the business that Grandfather Leary had begun in 1915, a factory making bottle caps. All four of them had spent most of their childhood with their grandparents as their father, Grandfather Leary’s only son, had been killed in world war II. For a while they had lived with their mother Alicia in California, but she was a bright, irresponsible young widow, full of wild enthusiasms and sudden changes of life plan, The Leary children rarely shared her enthusiasms, and they were quite happy when she sent them to live with their dull, safe, serious grandparents in Baltimore, while she traveled round the world with her latest husband.