Benjamin Wright glared. "When I was young, listening to gossip was not thought becoming in the cloth. When he came, I learned that he had stayed over in Mercer--without my consent, mark you--_to go to the theatre!_" "Well?" said Dr. Lavendar. "He was twenty-four. Why should he have your consent?" Mr. Wright waved this question aside. "When he came home, I spoke with some severity." "This quarrel," said Dr. Lavendar, "is not built on such folly as that." Benjamin Wright shook his head, and made a careless gesture with his trembling hand. "Not--entirely. I reproved him, as I say. And he was impertinent. Impertinent, mind you, to his father! And I--in those days my temper was somewhat quick--I--" "Yes?" But Mr. Wright seemed unable to proceed, except to say again, "I--reproved him." "But," Dr. Lavendar protested, "you don't mean to tell me that Samuel, just for a reproof, an unkind and unjust reproof, would--why, I cannot believe it!" "It was not unjust!" Benjamin Wright's melancholy eyes flamed angrily. "I know, Samuel," said Dr. Lavendar. "He is obstinate; I've told him so a hundred times. And he's conceited--so's everybody, more or less; if in nothing else, we're conceited because we're not conceited. But he's not a fool. So, whether he is right or not, I am sure he thinks he had something more to complain of than a good blowing-up?" "In a way," said the old man, examining his ridgy finger-nails and speaking with a gasp, "he had. Slightly." Dr. Lavendar's stern lip trembled with anxiety. "What?" "I--chastised him; a little." "You--_what_?" Benjamin Wright nodded; the wrinkled pouches under his eyes grew dully red. "My God!" he said plaintively; "think of that--a hasty moment! Thirty-two years; my God! I--spanked him." Dr. Lavendar opened his lips to speak, but found no words. "And he was offended! Offended? What right had he to be offended? _I_ was the offended party. He went to a low theatre. Apparently you see nothing wrong in that? Well, I've always said that every parson had the making of an actor in him. It's a toss-up--the stage or the pulpit. Same thing at bottom. But perhaps even you won't approve of his staying away all night? Smoking! Drinking! He'd been drunk. He confessed it. And there was a woman in it. He confessed that. Said they'd all 'gone to supper together.' Said that he was 'seeing the world'--which a man ('_man_,' if you please!) of his years had a right to do. Well; I suppose you'd have had me smile at him, and tuck him up in bed to sleep off his headache, and give him a stick of candy? That wasn't my way. I reproved him. I--chastised him. Perfectly proper. Perhaps--unusual. He was twenty-four, and I laid him across my knee, and--well; I got over it in fifteen minutes. I was, perhaps, hasty My temper in those days was not what it is now. But I forgave him in fifteen minutes; and he had gone! He's been gone--for thirty-two years. My God!"