u learned I was your
father, you refused to proceed further against me."

"Yes, sir," said Bubbles.

"You did wrong! Always do your duty. It was your duty to send me to the
chair, if you could. A fine father I'd been to you--and to Harry--and a
good honest man I was to your mother! My boy, I'm face to face with the
penalty that I have to pay--you. I know all about you, Bubbles, from
Lichtenstein, from Dr. Ferris, from Wilmot Allen and--and others. And
you're a good boy. I drove your mother crazy, I let you drift into the
streets--to sink, I thought, and perish; but you're a good boy. I gave
you no education, but you have picked up reading and writing and God
knows what else. Once I was going to wring your neck. I didn't. That's
the only favor you ever had at my hands. You'll grow up to be a good
man--a fine, clever, understanding man. And it won't be because of me,
it will be in spite of me. This is the hardest thing I have to face.
You've come now to pay a duty call. Well, my boy, I'm obliged. But I
wish to Heaven I had some hold on your affection, some way of getting a
hold. Bubbles, what can I do to make you like me?"

Bubbles wriggled with awful discomfort, but said nothing.

"Is it because of your mother that you can't ever like me?"

Bubbles drew a long breath as if for a deep dive. His voice shook. "She
lives in a bug-house," he said; "you drove her into it. Dr. Ferris says
you were crazy yourself and nothing you ever done ought to be held
against you. He says, and Miss Barbara, she says, that I ought to try to
like you and feel kind to you. And--and I thought it was my duty to come
and tell you that I just can't."

He was only a little boy, and the delivery of these plain truths to a
man he had always held in deadly dread unmanned him. He gave one short,
wailing, whimpering sob, and then bit his lips until he had himself in a
sort of control.

"That's all right, Bubbles," said the legless man after a pause. "It
hits hard, but it's all right. And whether you said it or not, it was
coming to me, and I knew it. Do you mind if I send you books and things
now and then? There was a book I had when I was a boy. I'd like you to
have it. Don't know what reminds me of it--unless it's you. It's the
story of a Frenchman, Bayard--they called him the chevalier _sans peur
et sans reproche_. That's French. The book tells what it means. You
better go now. I'm talking against time. I haven't got the same control
of my ner