"Oh! oh!" half sneered, half laughed a man, twice the age of the one I had addressed, who sat near by, listening to our conversation. I looked at him for a moment, and then said: "The great danger lies there, without doubt. If it were only a glass of ale and a game of dominoes--but it doesn't stop there, and well the young man's father knows it." "Perhaps he does," was answered. "I remember him in his younger days; and a pretty high boy he was. He didn't stop at a glass of ale and a game of dominoes; not he! I've seen him as drunk as a lord many a time; and many a time at a horse-race, or cock-fight, betting with the bravest. I was only a boy, though a pretty old boy; but I can tell you, Hargrove was no saint." "I wonder not, then, that he is so anxious for his son," was my remark. "He knows well the lurking dangers in the path he seems inclined to enter." "I don't see that they have done him much harm. He sowed his wild oats--then got married, and settled down into a good, substantial citizen. A little too religious and pharisaical, I always thought; but upright in his dealings. He had his pleasures in early life, as was befitting the season of youth--why not let his son taste of the same agreeable fruit? He's wrong, sir--wrong! And I've said as much to Ned. I only wish the boy had shown the right spunk this evening, and told the old man to go home about his business." "So do I," chimed in the young disciple in this bad school. "It's what I'd say to my old man, in double quick time, if he was to come hunting after me." "He knows better than to do that," said the other, in a way that let me deeper into the young man's character. "Indeed he does. He's tried his hand on me once or twice during the last year, but found it wouldn't do, no how; Tom Peters is out of his leading-strings." "And can drink his glass with any one, and not be a grain the worse for it." "Exactly, old boy!" said Peters, slapping his preceptor on the knee. "Exactly! I'm not one of your weak-headed ones. Oh no!" "Look here, Joe Morgan!"--the half-angry voice of Simon Slade now rung through the bar-room,--"just take yourself off home!" I had not observed the entrance of this person. He was standing at the bar, with an emptied glass in his hand. A year had made no improvement in his appearance. On the contrary, his clothes were more worn and tattered; his countenance more sadly marred. What he had said to irritate the landlord, I know not; but Slade's face was fiery with passion, and his eyes glared threateningly at the poor besotted one, who showed not the least inclination to obey. "Off with you, I say! And never show your face here again. I won't have such low vagabonds as you are about my house. If you can't keep decent and stay decent, don't intrude yourself here."