I have never grudged you money within reason, for any avowable
purpose; you had just to come to me and speak. And now I find that you
have forgotten all decency and all natural feeling, and actually
pawned--pawned--your mother's watch. You must have had some temptation;
I will do you justice to suppose it was a strong one. What did you want
with this money?"

"I would rather not tell you, sir," said John. "It will only make you
angry."

"I will not be fenced with," cried his father. "There must be an end of
disingenuous answers. What did you want with this money?"

"To lend it to Houston, sir," says John.

"I thought I had forbidden you to speak to that young man?" asked the
father.

"Yes, sir," said John; "but I only met him."

"Where?" came the deadly question.

And "In a billiard-room" was the damning answer. Thus had John's single
departure from the truth brought instant punishment. For no other
purpose but to see Alan would he have entered a billiard-room; but he
had desired to palliate the fact of his disobedience, and now it
appeared that he frequented these disreputable haunts upon his own
account.

Once more Mr. Nicholson digested the vile tidings in silence; and when
John stole a glance at his father's countenance, he was abashed to see
the marks of suffering.

"Well," said the old gentleman at last, "I cannot pretend not to be
simply bowed down. I rose this morning what the world calls a happy
man--happy, at least, in a son of whom I thought I could be reasonably
proud----"

But it was beyond human nature to endure this longer, and John
interrupted almost with a scream. "O, wheest!" he cried, "that's not
all, that's not the worst of it--it's nothing! How could I tell you
were proud of me? O! I wish, I wish that I had known; but you always
said I was such a disgrace! And the dreadful thing is this: we were all
taken up last night, and we have to pay Collette's fine among the six,
or we'll be had up for evidence--shebeening it is. They made me swear to
tell you; but for my part," he cried, bursting into tears, "I just wish
that I was dead!" And he fell on his knees before a chair and hid his
face.

Whether his father spoke, and whether he remained long in the room or at
once departed, are points lost to history. A horrid turmoil of mind and
body; bursting sobs; broken, vanishing thoughts, now of indignation, now
of remorse; broken elementary whiffs of consciousness, of the smell of
the horse-ha