He wished to give himself every chance for a good effect; therefore, he did not act hastily, but went over what he intended to say, rehearsing it with a few appropriate gestures, and even taking some pleasure in the pathetic dignity of this performance, as revealed by occasional glances at the mirror of his dressing-table. In spite of these little alleviations, his trouble was great and all too real, for, unhappily, the previous rehearsal of an emotional scene does not prove the emotion insincere. Descending, he found his father and mother still sitting upon the front porch. Then, standing before them, solemn-eyed, he uttered a preluding cough, and began: “Father,” he said in a loud voice, “I have come to--” “Dear me!” Mrs. Baxter exclaimed, not perceiving that she was interrupting an intended oration. “Willie, you DO look pale! Sit down, poor child; you oughtn't to walk so much in this heat.” “Father,” William repeated. “Fath--” “I suppose you got her safely home from church,” Mr. Baxter said. “She might have been carried off by footpads if you three boys hadn't been along to take care of her!” But William persisted heroically. “Father--” he said. “Father, I have come to--” “What on earth's the matter with you?” Mr. Baxter ceased to fan himself; Mrs. Baxter stopped rocking, and both stared, for it had dawned upon them that something unusual was beginning to take place. William backed to the start and tried it again. “Father, I have come to--” He paused and gulped, evidently expecting to be interrupted, but both of his parents remained silent, regarding him with puzzled surprise. “Father,” he began once more, “I have come--I have come to--to place before you something I think it's your duty as my father to undertake, and I have thought over this step before laying it before you.” “My soul!” said Mr. Baxter, under his breath. “My soul!” “At my age,” William continued, swallowing, and fixing his earnest eyes upon the roof of the porch, to avoid the disconcerting stare of his father--“at my age there's some things that ought to be done and some things that ought not to be done. If you asked me what I thought OUGHT to be done, there is only one answer: When anybody as old as I am has to go out among other young men his own age that already got one, like anyway half of them HAVE, who I go with, and their fathers have already taken such a step, because they felt it was the only right thing to do, because at my age and the young men I go with's age, it IS the only right thing to do, because that is something nobody could deny, at my age--” Here William drew a long breath, and, deciding to abandon that sentence as irrevocably tangled, began another: “I have thought over this step, because there comes a time to every young man when they must lay a step before their father before something happens that they would be sorry for. I have thought this undertaking over, and I am certain it would be your honest duty--”