_Dad._ Turning loose a live goat in a college lecture hall! _Bob._ You can't mean it! _Dad._ Here's the letter! They were having a fraternity initiation, it seems, and Jack was bringing the goat, his horns painted with phosphorus, a bunch of fire-crackers tied to his tail. Fire-crackers to the tail of a goat! _Jessie._ But Dad! How do you know that Jack-- _Dad._ He admitted everything in his letter to the dean! He was passing a hall where they were giving an evening lecture. He had a grudge against the professor. He turned out the lights, and turned loose the goat! What do you think of that? _(A silence.)_ What do you _think_ of it? _Jessie._ Why Dad, I think it's funny. _Dad._ Funny! You propose to take his side, do you? And now he's out of college and has nothing to do but loaf around the house! I tell you I've reached the limit of my patience. It's just as Bob says--he's a parasite. Nothing to do but squander my money--fit for nothing else, having no other idea! I tell you I won't support the loafer! _Jessie._ Dad! _Bob._ You've brought the boy up wrong. _Dad._ So you propose to blame _me!_ _Jack (appears in doorway Left clad in ragged anil dirty overcoat)._ Of course, Dad. It really isn't fair to scold other people for your own blunder. _Dad._ Oh, there you are! _(Notices Jack's clothes.)_ What the devil is this? _Jack._ What, Dad? _Dad._ Drunk again, sir? Rolling in the gutter? And on your birthday too! _Jack._ Dad-- _Dad._ Look at him! A hundred and eighty dollars I pay to a Broadway tailor to make this young hopeful an overcoat, and look at what he does with it! I prepare a birthday party, and invite all his friends, and see the condition in which he comes to welcome them! Do you wonder my patience is exhausted? Do you wonder-- _Jessie._ Dad, you don't understand! _Dad._ No, I don't understand! How could I be expected to understand? How can an old man hope to keep up with a youth so brilliant--a youth who goes to college and ties firecrackers to the tails of goats! A youth who comes on his birthday looking like a tramp-- _Jessie._ Listen, Dad--this is a joke-- _Dad._ Everything's a joke to my son! But I tell you I'm tired of his jokes. I mean to make him understand that his days of tomfoolery are over! Do you realize it--here he is, twenty-one years of age, when he should be coming into possession of the fortune his mother left him--and he's tying fire-crackers to the tails of goats! And I--I am trustee of the money, and have to decide whether he's fit to have it or not! I know that if I give it to him I ruin him for life--I start him on a career of drunkenness and idleness! Look at him as he stands there--and imagine him the owner of a quarter of a million dollars! And under his mother's will the only choice I have is to give it to him, or turn it over to a Home for Cats! _Jessie._ Please, Dad!