And, indeed, the room with its mammoth sideboard black with age and its solitary chair at one end of the long table, was lonely enough. On the walls, papered a generation ago with a drab paper sprinkled over with occasional pale gilt medallions, were some time-stained engravings: "The Destruction of Nineveh"; "The Trial of Effie Deans"; "The Death-bed of Washington." A gloomy room at best; now, with the shutters of one window still bowed, and the faint twitter of the canaries, and that one chair at the head of the table, it was very melancholy. "Sit down!" said Benjamin Wright. Still in his moth-eaten high hat, he shuffled about to fetch from the sideboard a fat decanter with a silver chain and label around its neck, and two tumblers. "No," said Dr. Lavendar; "I'm obliged to you." "What, temperance?" snarled the other. "Well, I hope so," Dr. Lavendar said, "but not a teetotaler, if that's what you mean. Only I don't happen to want any whiskey at five o'clock in the afternoon." At which his host swore softly, and lifting the decanter poured out two good fingers. "Mr. Wright," said Dr. Lavendar, "I will be obliged if you will not swear in my presence." "You needn't talk to me," cried Benjamin Wright, "I despise this damned profanity there is about; besides, I am always scrupulously particular in my language before females and parsons. Well;--I wanted to see you, because that jack-donkey, Sam, my grandson, is causing me some anxiety." "Why, Sam is a good boy," Dr. Lavendar protested. "Too good. I like a boy to be human at twenty-three. He doesn't know the wickedness of the world." "Thank God," said Dr. Lavendar. "Dominie, ignorance ain't virtue." "No; but it's a fair substitute. I wouldn't want one of my boys to be able to pass an examination on wrong-doing." "But you want him to recognize it when he sees it, don't you?" "If he knows goodness, you can trust him to recognize the other thing. Teach 'em goodness. Badness will label itself." "Doesn't follow," Benjamin Wright said. "But you're a parson; parsons know about as much as females--good females. Look here! I have reasons for saying that the boy ought to get out of Old Chester. I want your assistance." "Get out of Old Chester!--to see how wicked the world is?" Mr. Wright shook his head. "No; he could see that here--only the puppy hasn't got his eyes open yet. A little knocking about the world, such as any boy ought to have, will open 'em. Living in Old Chester is narrowing; very narrowing. Besides, he's got--well, he's got some truck he's written. It isn't entirely bad, Lavendar, and he might as well try to get it published, or, maybe, produced in some theatre. So let him go and hunt up a publisher or a manager. Now, very likely, his--his _mother_ won't approve. I want you to urge--her, to let him go."