. Fully persuaded of the force of my own
arguments, I made up my mind to prefer this tremendous request on the
first favorable opportunity, and so hurried home, with my head full of
quite other thoughts than usual.

My father was sitting at the table with a mountain of books and papers
before him. He looked up sharply as I entered, jerked his chair round so
as to get the light at his back, put on his spectacles, and
ejaculated:--

"Well, sir!"

This was a bad sign, and one with which I was only too familiar. Nature
had intended my father for a barrister. He was an adept in all the arts
of intimidation, and would have conducted a cross-examination to
perfection. As it was, he indulged in a good deal of amateur practice,
and from the moment when he turned his back to the light and donned the
inexorable spectacles, there was not a soul in the house, from myself
down to the errand-boy, who was not perfectly aware of something
unpleasant to follow.

"Well, sir!" he repeated, rapping impatiently upon the table with his
knuckles.

Having nothing to reply to this greeting, I looked out of the window and
remained silent; whereby, unfortunately. I irritated him still more.

"Confound you, sir!" he exclaimed, "have you nothing to say?"

"Nothing," I replied, doggedly.

"Stand there!" he said, pointing to a particular square in the pattern
of the carpet. "Stand there!"

I obeyed.

"And now, perhaps, you will have the goodness to explain what you have
been about this morning; and why it should have taken you just
thirty-seven minutes by the clock to accomplish a journey which a
tortoise--yes, sir, a tortoise,--might have done in less than ten?"

I gravely compared my watch with the clock before replying.

"Upon my word, sir," I said, "your tortoise would have the advantage of
me."

"The advantage of you! What do you mean by the advantage of you, you
affected puppy?"

"I had no idea," said I, provokingly, "that you were in unusual haste
this morning."

"Haste!" shouted my father. "I never said I was in haste. I never choose
to be in haste. I hate haste!"

"Then why..."

"Because you have been wasting your time and mine, sir," interrupted he.
"Because I will not permit you to go idling and vagabondizing about
the village."

My _sang froid_ was gone directly.

"Idling and vagabondizing!" I repeated angrily. "I have done nothing of
the kind. I defy you to prove it. When have you known me forget that I
am a ge