He poured out another finger of whiskey, but forgot to drink it. A

canary-bird chirped loudly, then lapsed into a sleepy twitter.

"I was well rid of him! To make a quarrel out of a thing like that--a

joke, as you might say. I laughed, myself, afterwards, at the thought

of it. A fellow of twenty-four--spanked! Why didn't he swear and be

done with it? I would have reproved him for his profanity, of course.

Profanity in young persons is a thing I will not tolerate; Simmons

will tell you so. But it would have cleared the air. If he had done

that, we'd have been laughing about it, now;--he and I, together." The

old man suddenly put both hands over his face, and a broken sound came

from behind them.

Dr. Lavendar shook his head, speechlessly.

"What's the matter with you?" cried Benjamin Wright, pulling off his

hat and banging it down on the table so fiercely that the crown

collapsed on one side like an accordion. "Good God! Can't you see the

tomfoolery of this business of thirty-two years of hurt feelings?"

Dr. Lavendar was silent.

"What! You excuse him? When I was young, parsons believed in the Ten

Commandments; 'Honor thy father and thy mother--'"

"There is another scripture which saith, 'Fathers, provoke not your

children to wrath.' And when it comes to the Commandments, I would

commend the third to your attention. As for Samuel, you robbed him."

"Robbed him?"

"You took his self-respect. A young man's dignity, at twenty-four, is

as precious to him as a woman's modesty. You stole it. Yes; you robbed

him. Our Heavenly Father doesn't do that, when He punishes us. We lose

our dignity ourselves; but He never robs us of it. Did ye ever notice

that? Well; you robbed Samuel. My--my--my!" Dr. Lavendar sighed

wearily. For, indeed, the matter looked very dark. Here was the moment

he had prayed for--the readiness of one or the other of the two men to

take the first step towards reconciliation. Such readiness, he had

thought, would mean the healing of the dreadful wound, whatever it

was; forgiveness on the father's part of some terrible wrong-doing,

forgiveness on the son's part of equally terrible hardness of heart.

Instead he found a cruel and ridiculous mortification, made permanent

by thirty-two unpardoning years. Here was no sin to command the

dreadful dignity of repentance, with its divine response of

forgiveness. The very lack of seriousness in the cause made the effect

more serious. He looked over at the older man, and shook his head....

How could they pay their debts to each other, this father and son?

Could Benjamin Wright return the self-respect he had stolen away?

Could Samuel offer that filial affection which should have blessed all

these empty years? A wickedly ludicrous memory forbade the solemnity

of a reconciliation: below any attempt the father might make, there

would be a grin, somewhere; below any attempt the son might make,

there would be a cringe, somewhere. The only possible hope was in

absolute, flat commonplace. Play-writing, as a subject of

conversation, was out of the question!




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