your education is deficient. Surely you have
agility and courage. Why a mistake, my son?"

"The mistake," I replied, "was in the beginning and not in the end. I
made the error in believing he told an untruth."

"Indeed?" said my father. "Thank you, Brutus, I have had wine enough for
the evening. Do you not consider your error--how shall we put it--quite
inexcusable in view of the other things you have doubtless heard?"

But I could only stare dumbly at him across the table.

"Come, come," he continued. "How goes the gossip now? Surely there is
more about me. Surely you have heard"--he paused to drain the dregs in
his glass--"the rest?"

I eyed him for a moment in silence before I answered, but he met my
glance fairly, indulging apparently in the same curiosity, half idle,
half cynical, that he might have displayed before some episode of the
theatre. It was a useless question that he asked. He knew too well that
the answer was obvious.

"Yes," I said, "I have heard it."

"So," he exclaimed cheerfully, "my reputation still continues. Wonderful,
is it not, how durable a bad reputation is, and how fragile a good one.
One bounds back like a rubber ball. The other shatters like a lustre
punch bowl. And did the same young man--I presume he was young--enlighten
you about this, the most fatal parental weakness?"

"No," I said, "I learned of it later."

He raised his hand and began gently stroking his coat lapel, his fingers
quickly crossing it in a vain search for some imaginary wrinkle, moving
back and forth with a steady persistence, while he watched me, still
amused, still indifferent.

"And might I ask who told you?" he inquired.

"Your brother-in-law," I replied, "My Uncle Jason."

"Dieu!" cried my father, "but I grow careless."

He was looking ruefully at his lapel. Somehow the threads had given way,
and there was a rent in the gray satin.

"Another coat ruined," he observed, and the raillery was gone from his
voice. "How fortunate it is that the evening is well along, and bed time
is nearly here. One coat torn in the brambles, and one with a knife, and
now--But your uncle was right, quite right in telling you. Indeed, I
should have done the same myself. The truth first, my son. Always
remember that."

And he turned again to his coat.

"I told him I did not believe it," I ventured, but the appeal in my
voice, if there was any, passed him quite unnoticed.

"Indeed?" he said. "Brutus, you will put an ex