“You’ve never understood. I’ve had to think for you. All my life I meant you to go to a Public School and mix with the sons of gentlemen. I meant you to have the chance to become what I have never been. I’ve saved and worked for your education. I meant you to be a gentleman, and if the boys at your school or the masters there ever knew that you were the son of a bruiser—they’d call it a smudge on your name. That’s why I made you promise. It had to be our secret. And so that no one that you mix with should ever see you with me at the ringside, I’ve never let you come to see me fight. I retired before you ever went to Harley to make quite sure. But lately I’ve been afraid. I began to wonder if I had saved enough, after all, to give you a fair chance. And then they offered this purse, bigger than any I’d ever fought for in my life, if I’d come back. I never imagined for a moment that you would come here to see me. I thought you were safe at school. But you’ve come. You haven’t played the game. The secret will be out. Somebody is bound to have seen you. You would be very conspicuous in a Harley cap. When you go back to school they’ll know. It’s what I’ve always been afraid of. They——” “I’m not going back,” said Bobbie quietly. His father stared at him with glassy eyes. “Not going back? Why? What’s happened? You haven’t been expelled?” “No. But I’m not going back to a place where I have to be ashamed of my father.” Johnny took hold of his arm. “Who did you ask if you could come?” he demanded. “What reason did you give? Does your Headmaster know that you came to see your father fight for money?” “I didn’t ask,” said Bobbie. “I ran away.” There was a moment’s heavy silence. “You ran away?” his father said at last. “How? Who paid your fare?” “I did. You gave me much too much money. You thought I needed far more than I did. I never spent half of it. I saved it up; and it brought me here and paid for my seat.” His father was staring at him dully, but now his eyes lit up again with sudden light. “Nobody knows?” he said. “Are you sure? If that’s true we can get you back there to-night, perhaps, and they’ll never know you came. If nobody has seen you here, perhaps——” “I’m not going back,” said Bobbie. His father’s eyes met his evenly. “You mean,” said he at last, “that you never want to be a gentleman? Is it that the dearest wish I have means nothing to you at all?” “I’ll go to another school if you like,” said Bobbie in a small voice, “but I can’t go back to Harley. There’s somebody there who knows. He holds it over my head and makes me do things. It’s awful. I—I can’t go back.” “Somebody knows?” His father was looking at him keenly. “Why have you never told me? _Who_ knows?” “Coles is there.” For a moment his father was silent. He stood perfectly still, as a man will who is suddenly stricken with ill news. And at last his hands moved to his dressing-gown.