“Don't be nervous, boy,” said my father, handing me his cue. “You see what's on the balls. You cannon and hold the white, and land the red in the middle pocket. If you can't do the brilliant thing, and finish the game with an eight stroke, do the safe one,--the cannon or the hazard. But, above all, don't lose your stroke, sir. Mind that, for I've a pot of money on the game.” “I don't think you ought to counsel him, Norcott,” said Cleremont. “If he's a player, he's fit to devise his own game.” “Oh, hang it, no,” broke in Hotham; “Norcott has a perfect right to tell him what's on the table.” “If you object seriously, sir,” said my father proudly, “the party is at an end.” “I put it to yourself,” began Cleremont. “You shall not appeal to me against myself, sir. You either withdraw your objection, or you maintain it.” “Of course he withdraws it,” said Hotham, whose eyes never wandered from my father's face. Cleremont nodded a half-unwilling assent. “You will do me the courtesy to speak, perhaps,” said my father; and every word came from him with a tremulous roll. “Yes, yes, I agree. There was really nothing in my remark,” said Cleremont, whose self-control seemed taxed to its last limit. “There, go on, boy, and finish this stupid affair,” said my father, and he turned to the chimney to light his cigar. I leaned over the table, and a mist seemed to rise before me. I saw volumes of cloud rolling swiftly across, and meteors, or billiard-balls, I knew not which, shooting through them. I played and missed; I did not even strike a ball. A wild roar of laughter, a cry of joy, and a confused blending of several voices in various tones followed, and I stood there like one stunned into immobility. Meanwhile Cleremont finished the game, and, clapping me gayly on the shoulder, cried, “I 'm more grateful to you than your father is, my lad. That shaking hands of yours has made a difference of two hundred Naps to me.” I turned towards the fire; my father had left the room. CHAPTER VII. A PRIVATE AUDIENCE I had but reached my room when Eccles followed me to say my father wished to see me at once. “Come, come, Digby,” said Eccles, good-naturedly, “don't be frightened. Even if he should be angry with you, his passion passes soon over; and, if uncontradicted, he is never disposed to bear a grudge long. Go immediately, however, and don't keep him waiting.” I cannot tell with what a sense of abasement I entered my father's dressing-room; for, after all, it was the abject condition of my own mind that weighed me down. “So, sir,” said he, as I closed the door, “this is something I was not prepared for. You might be forty things, but I certainly did not suspect that a son of mine should be a coward.” Had my father ransacked his whole vocabulary for a term of insult, he could pot have found one to pain me like this. “I am not a coward, sir,” said I, reddening till I felt my face in a perfect glow.