"I'm coming to it all in good time. It appears he was quarrelsome in his cups. That's the odd part about drink, miss; you never know how it's going to act on your temperament. As William--that was my third--used to say: 'Liquor is like love, Maria, me dear; some it will make joyful, others sad; some will want to be friends with everybody; others will fight on the smallest pretence.' So it was with young William; he must needs fight another man in the canteen who was just as far gone as himself; and properly punished he was for his pains. The sergeant treated him leniently as it was his first offence; and gave him a few days' leave to recover. The boy is full of sorrow and repentance. He doesn't trouble about his black eye one little bit. What he feels is the shame of it. As William--that was my second--used to say: 'Shame cuts deeper than any whip, and the pain we bring on ourselves is the hardest of all to bear.' My boy is feeling the truth of his father's saying nicely," concluded Mrs. Hulver, with grim satisfaction. "What was it that provoked the quarrel?" "William was too far gone in drink to remember much; but he thinks that they were all talking about these sufferagette women--I'd make them suffer if I was the King!--and the man he fought said something very nasty about the sex. I shouldn't have troubled if I'd been William. Just look at the harm the hussies do! Here's William that knocked about and blackened over the eyes that his own father wouldn't know him, all through talking about them! As if God hadn't made my boy dark enough in his complexion without their interference! But as long as there are women to love there will be men to fight over them. As William--that was my third--used to say: 'When the Almighty gave ould Adam his wife, he handed him the shillelagh and told him to take care and use it like a gentleman. It was only after the devil interfered that Adam thought of turning it against the lady herself.' It was the woman that started men to fight and she will keep it up to the finish," concluded Mrs. Hulver, with some heat. "I am sorry you are so troubled," said Eola. "And I'm vexed that any of my trouble should be passed on to you. I felt that I must tell you all about it; it wasn't right to keep it from you and the master. I should have come to you last night only I didn't see the good of worrying you before the morning. This morning, of course, it's my duty to tell you the truth and to hide nothing. As William, the boy's own father, used to say: 'It's easier in the end to face the truth than to back a lie.'" "You have him in your room, I suppose?"