opularity in the gay coat of many colours. It was almost inevitable
that he should become vain and overbearing.

He was also a talebearer. He looked down with unconcealed contempt
upon his half-brothers who were the sons of the housemaids. "When
Joseph was with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah he brought unto his
father their evil report."

The tattler in the school and the squealer on the street come in,
justly perhaps, for the contempt of their fellows. And whatever
allowance may be made for exceptional situations, the instinct which
brands the talebearer as mean is mainly wholesome. It was One who knew
what was in man who said, "Why beholdest thou the mote in thy brother's
eye and considerest not the beam in thine own eye? Judge not that ye
be not judged." It is well for every man to sweep his own dooryard
first before he begins to peddle stories as to the condition of his
neighbour's dooryard.

This young man also had his full share of that conceit which thinks
quite as highly of itself as it ought to think. He had his daydreams,
and this was well. I would not give a fig for the young fellow who
does not see ahead of him masses of possible achievement in his
particular line as high as the Sierras, if not quite so solid. But
Joseph was soft and callow enough to tell his day-dreams to his fellows
before he had done anything to indicate that those dreams might come
true.

He told his brothers that he would be the tallest sheaf in the field
and that they as lesser sheaves would come and make obeisance before
him. He went still further and included his elders and betters in that
general bowing down. He said, "Behold the sun and moon and the eleven
stars made obeisance to me." He saw himself as the centre of the whole
solar system and the rest of his family revolving about him as minor
satellites. This day-dream of the ambitious young man was too much
even for his indulgent father. "And Jacob rebuked him for his dream."

There you have all the necessary ingredients for a family explosion.
When any young man is a favourite son, and a talebearer, and is filled
to the eyes with self-conceit, he has in him the sulphur, the
saltpeter, and the charcoal which enter into the composition of that
sort of gunpowder which is liable to blow him up. You do not wonder
that his brothers hated him. You are not surprised that when they saw
him coming across the fields at Dothan they said with a sneer, "Behold,
the dream