The younger man shivered. He thought of Patty, and he looked at the old man before him, sly, vicious, gin-sodden--and his father! "You do not want to live with me," he answered coldly. "You could not bear to live with me for one week, and you know it. Will you tell me what you do want, and why you have left Glasgow?" "To congratulate you!" his father answered, with a drunken chuckle. "Walter Jones and Patty Stanton--third time of asking! Oh, I heard of it! But not through you. Why," he continued, with a quick change to ferocity, "would you not ask your own father to your wedding, you ungrateful boy?" "No," the vicar replied sternly, "he being such as he is, I would not." "Oh, you are ashamed of him, are you? You have kept him dark, I fancy?" the old man replied, grinning with wicked enjoyment as he saw how his son winced at each sentence, how his colour went and came. "Well, now you will have the pleasure of introducing me to the squire, and to daughter Patty, and to all your friends. It will be a pleasant surprise for them. I'll be bound you said I was dead." "I have not said you were dead." "Don't you wish I was?" "God keep me from it!" the vicar groaned. On that, the two men stood looking at each other, the one neat, clean-shaven, conventional, the other vile with the degradation of drink. Though the windows stood open, the room was full of the smell of spirits, and seemed itself soiled and degraded. Suddenly the younger man sat down at the table, and, burying his face between his hands, fell into a storm of weeping. His father shifted his feet, and licking his lips nervously, looked at him in maudlin shame; then from him to the sideboard, in search of his supporter under all trials. But the sideboard was bare, the doors closed, the key invisible. Mr. Jones grew indignant. "There, stop that foolery!" he said brutally. "You make me sick." The rough adjuration restored the young man's nerve, and he looked up, his cheeks wet with tears. Tears in a man are shameful; but this tragedy was one not to be evaded by manliness, or, indeed, by any help of men. "Tell me what it is you want," he said wearily. "More money," his father snarled. The liquor with which he had primed himself was losing its effect. "I cannot live on what you give me. Glasgow is a dear place. The money ought to be mine; all of it!" "You have had two hundred a year--one-half of my mother's money." "I know. I want three." "Well, you cannot have it," the son answered languidly. "If you must know, I have agreed to settle one-half of my income on my wife now, and the other half at your death. Therefore it will not be in my power to allow you more. You have spent your own fortune, and you have no claim on my mother's money."