My father was in the parlour when I came in. He glanced up at the clock, which meant that he was surprised at my returning so much earlier than usual, but he made no remark. I sat down to take off my boots; then I took up the book I was reading. My father all this time had not spoken a word, and I had returned him silence for silence. Sometimes, after a whole evening of this kind of thing, my feeling of constraint would become so acute that the effort required to say even good-night would appear almost insurmountable, and I would invent all sorts of excuses for slipping out of the room without doing so. My father was correcting exercises. The books were arranged in two piles in front of him――those he had already finished with, and those he had not yet touched. Behind him was the wall, with its cheap, ugly, flowered paper, and illuminated texts. I glanced at him from time to time over the top of my book. There was a perpetual dinginess in his appearance; his linen was not often scrupulously clean, and his nails never were. Just now I wanted to ask him to stop snuffing. How could I read while he kept on making such disgusting noises! He had a peculiar way of breathing through his nose so as to produce a sort of whistling sound, which I could never get accustomed to. Often I had gone upstairs and sat in an ice-cold bedroom merely to be rid of it. Suddenly he looked up over his spectacles and addressed me across the table. “I intended to ask you about that book you have brought home. Who gave it to you?” I at once assumed an air of elaborate nonchalance. “Nobody gave it to me. I found it in the book-case.” “What are you reading in it?” “‘Venus and Adonis.’” “I don’t like the books you have been reading lately.” “But this is Shakespeare!” I exclaimed, feigning tremendous astonishment. “I don’t care who it is. Why can’t you read what other boys read?” “I thought he was supposed to be the greatest poet in the world!” “You know very well what I mean. If you _do_ read him, why don’t you read the plays――‘Julius Cæsar?’” “I’d rather have poems than plays. What is the harm in this?” “The harm is that it is not suited to your age. It is full of all kinds of voluptuous images and thoughts. You have been too much at Derryaghy lately.”