But his thoughts were stretching him on a couch of fire. Now that the miserable day was over, he had time to think, time to realize. And his reflections turned him heart-sick. At times he would sink into an apathy of misery. Again a wave of angry shame would scourge him. This was his post of responsibility, of protectorship--to be assigned to the office of unpaid servant and unwelcome hanger-on in the house of his own son! To endure weeks, perhaps months of snubs, of petty insults, of orders worse than insults. To have his cronies of the Eagle see him pottering around town on household errands such as in those days were usually performed in Ideala by negro servants. He could hear in anticipation old Stage’s disgusting toothful chuckle. To drink he had turned for refuge, in every crisis or bitterness, for the past fourteen years. And to drink and its nepenthe his mind now rushed. He was prompted to get up and dress and go to the Eagle. The barroom there would not be closed for another half-hour. Then he remembered that Marcia, following her nightly custom, had locked the lower doors and had put their keys into her housewife-bag. The lower windows, too, were lock-shuttered. There was, clearly, no egress by the ordinary route. As difficulties arose, his thirst increased with them, and grew to a gnawing, sentient thing. And with added desire came calculation. Before going to bed he had looked out of the window at the moonlit town below. And subconsciously he had noted the stout iron waterpipe--nearly a foot wide, including its supports--that ran transversely down the eaves, crossing just under the window and extending at the same angle to within a few feet of the ground, before turning and going directly downward. An agile and cool-headed man might readily descend by means of this pipe. Whether or not he could return by the same route was quite another problem and one that the man’s rapidly wakening drink-lust did not trouble to take into account. At worst he would be but anticipating a disgrace that was morally certain to come, soon or late. Dad raised himself on his elbow. As he did so the door of his room opened and closed in utter noiselessness, and a square-shouldered little figure clad in white stood beside his bed. “I knew I’d find you awake,” whispered Jimmie, perching on the bed’s edge. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Dad. I wanted to tell you before. But mother kept me in the room all the time the folks were here. It’s awful hard lines.” “It can’t be helped,” said Dad, with an effort at philosophy. “I got a hint of how it was going to be,” said the boy. “I heard mother and father talking. But I didn’t have the sand to tell you when you were so tickled at being asked here. And, anyway, I didn’t know how bad it would turn out. Mother is--” “Mother is mother, Jim. Let’s try to remember that. She’s a good woman. She means it all for the best.”