he
slimly-built house, suggested the idea that the poor man had flung
himself on his bed.

"Shank Leather," said Charlie Brooke, that same night as they strolled
on the sea-shore, "you gave expression to some sentiments to-day which I
highly approved of. One of them was `Speak out your mind, and fear
nothing!' I mean to do so now, and expect that you will not be hurt by
my following your advice."

"Well!" exclaimed Shank, with a dubious glance, for he disliked the
seriousness of his friend's tone.

"Your father--" began Charlie.

"Please don't speak about _him_," interrupted the other. "I know all
that you can say. His case is hopeless, and I can't bear to speak about
it."

"Well, I won't speak about him, though I cannot agree with you that his
case is hopeless. But it is yourself that I wish to speak about. You
and I are soon to separate; it must be for a good long while--it may be
for ever. Now I must speak out my mind before I go. My old playmate,
school-fellow, and chum, you have begun to walk in your poor father's
footsteps, and you may be sure that if you don't turn round all your
hopes will be blasted--at least for this life--perhaps also for that
which is to come. Now don't be angry or hurt, Shank. Remember that you
not only encouraged me, but advised me to speak out my mind."

"Yes, but I did not advise you to form a false, uncharitable judgment of
your chum," returned Leather, with a dash of bitterness in his tone. "I
admit that I'm fond of a social glass, and that I sometimes, though
rarely, take a little--a very little--more than, perhaps, is necessary.
But that is very different from being a drunkard, which you appear to
assume that I am."

"Nay, Shank, I don't assume that. What I said was that you are
_beginning_ to walk in your dear father's footsteps. No man ever yet
became a drunkard without _beginning_. And I feel certain that no man
ever, when beginning, had the most distant intention or expectation of
becoming a drunkard. Your danger, dear old fellow, lies in your _not
seeing_ the danger. You admit that you like a social glass. Shank, I
candidly make the same admission--I like it,--but after seeing your
father, and hearing your defence, the danger has been so deeply
impressed on _me_, that from this hour I resolve, God helping me, never
more to taste a social glass."

"Well, Charlie, you know yourself best," returned his friend airily,
"and if you think yourself in so grea