"Well, I’ve got to make the trip to Savannah," he said, still avoiding his son’s glance, and trying to keep up his attitude of cold reproof. He was becoming convinced that Langdon was acquiring a most disagreeable habit of justifying his own wild conduct by what he had heard of his father’s past, and this was decidedly irritating to the planter, who found enough to reproach himself with in reflecting upon what he had gone through without being held accountable for another career which looked quite as bad in the bud and might bear even worse fruit. "Yes, I think myself, all jokes aside, that you ought to go," Langdon said. "I’ll do the best I can to keep things straight here. The hunting will be good, and I can manage to kill time. You’ll want to take along some spending money, father. Those old chums of yours down there will draw you into a poker game sure." "I’ll cut that out, I reckon"—the Colonel smiled in spite of himself. Langdon was such a copy of what he had been at the same age that it seemed, under stress of certain memories, almost wrong to reprove him. "No, I’ve sworn off from cards, and that’s one thing I want you to let alone. I don’t want to hear of your having any more of those all-night carouses here, leaving bullet-holes in your grandfather’s portrait, as you and your dissolute gang did the last time I was away. It’s a wonder to me you and those fellows didn’t burn the house down." At this juncture Langdon was glad to see the overseer of the plantation on the veranda, and the Colonel went out to give him some instructions.