n his pockets for a
moment before producing two or three short newspaper clippings from an
inner coat pocket. "There--there's the truth of it; it's all there," he
said eagerly. "'Cox will immediately be given his freedom--after sixteen
months as an innocent victim of the law'--that's what it says!"

"I'll read nothin'," the old man said, sweeping back the slips with a
scornful hand, his small, deep-set eyes blinking at his son like a
monkey's.

"Well, all right, all right," Chester answered, his thin face burning
again, his voice hoarsely belligerent.

"That's the jestice you'll get from your father!" the old woman said,
with a cackle. Julia gathered up the newspaper clippings.

"Aren't you mean, Grandpa!" she said, indignantly, beginning to read.

"Maybe I am, maybe I am," he retorted fiercely. "But you'll find there's
no smoke without some fire, my fine lady, and when a boy that's always
been a lazy, idle shame to his father and mother gets a taste of blame,
you can depend that no newspaper is going to make a saint of him!"

"Grandma, don't let him talk that way!" Julia protested, her breast
rising and falling. Chester turned to his father.

"Maybe if you'd a-give me a better chance," he said sullenly, "maybe if
us boys hadn't been kicked around so much, shoved into the first job
that came handy, seeing Ma and the girls afraid to breathe while you was
in the house--"

Both men were now standing, their faces close together.

"Well, you ain't going to have another chance here!" the old man
shouted. "I'll have no jailbirds settin' around here to be petted and
babied! Get that into your head! Don't you let me come into the house
and find you here again----"

"Pa!" protested Mrs. Cox, fired by the eyes of her granddaughters.
"Yes--an' 'Pa'!" he snarled, pulling on his old hat, and opening the
kitchen door. "But it'll be Pa on the wrong side of your face if you
make any mistake about it! Jailbird!" he muttered to himself, with a
final slam at the door. The others looked at each other.

"That's a sweet welcome home," said Chester, with a bitter laugh. He was
standing, his head lowered; there was bewilderment as well as anger in
his look.

"Pa's got to be a terrible crank," said Mrs. Cox, returning to her
teapot, after a glance through the window at her retiring lord. "He
carries on something terrible sometimes."

"Well, he won't carry on any longer as far as I am concerned!" Chester
said, a little vaguely.