he Colonel. 'You have never been expelled from
the divinity hall; you have never been broke. I was: broke for a neglect
of military duty. To tell you the open truth, your Highness, I was the
worse of drink; it's a thing I never do now,' he added, taking out his
glass. 'But a man, you see, who has really tasted the defects of his own
character, as I have, and has come to regard himself as a kind of blind
teetotum knocking about life, begins to learn a very different view about
forgiveness. I will talk of not forgiving others, sir, when I have made
out to forgive myself, and not before; and the date is like to be a long
one. My father, the Reverend Alexander Gordon, was a good man, and
damned hard upon others. I am what they call a bad one, and that is just
the difference. The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green
hand in life.'

'And yet I have heard of you, Colonel, as a duellist,' said Gotthold.

'A different thing, sir,' replied the soldier. 'Professional etiquette.
And I trust without unchristian feeling.'

Presently after the Colonel fell into a deep sleep and his companions
looked upon each other, smiling.

'An odd fish,' said Gotthold.

'And a strange guardian,' said the Prince. 'Yet what he said was true.'

'Rightly looked upon,' mused Gotthold, 'it is ourselves that we cannot
forgive, when we refuse forgiveness to our friend. Some strand of our
own misdoing is involved in every quarrel.'

'Are there not offences that disgrace the pardoner?' asked Otto. 'Are
there not bounds of self-respect?'

'Otto,' said Gotthold, 'does any man respect himself? To this poor waif
of a soldier of fortune we may seem respectable gentlemen; but to
ourselves, what are we unless a pasteboard portico and a deliquium of
deadly weaknesses within?'

'I? yes,' said Otto; 'but you, Gotthold--you, with your interminable
industry, your keen mind, your books--serving mankind, scorning pleasures
and temptations! You do not know how I envy you.'

'Otto,' said the Doctor, 'in one word, and a bitter one to say: I am a
secret tippler. Yes, I drink too much. The habit has robbed these very
books, to which you praise my devotion, of the merits that they should
have had. It has spoiled my temper. When I spoke to you the other day,
how much of my warmth was in the cause of virtue? how much was the fever
of last night's wine? Ay, as my poor fellow-sot there said, and as I
vaingloriously denied, we are all mise