For he loathed himself, this poor young man born and reared in the very hotbed of temptation, struggling to break the chain that he had but recently discovered was bound around him, making resolutions many and strong, and gradually awakening to the knowledge that resolutions were flimsy as paper threads compared with the iron bands with which his tyrant held him. After the groan, he opened his eyes, and staring about him in a bewildered way, tried to take in his unfamiliar surroundings. "Where in the name of wonders am I now?" he said at last and aloud. Whereupon Theodore came to the bedside and said, "Good-morning, Pliny." "What the mischief!" began Pliny, then he stopped; and as memory came to his aid, added a short, sharp, "Oh!" and relapsed into silence. "Are you able to get up and go down to breakfast with me?" questioned Theodore. And then Pliny raised himself on his elbow, and burst forth: "I say, Mallery, why didn't you just leave me to my confounded fate? I should have blundered home somehow, and if that long-suffering sister of mine had chanced to fail in her plans, why my precious father would have discovered my condition and kicked me out of doors, for good. He has threatened to do it--and that is the way they all do anyhow. Isn't it, Mallery? _make_ drunkards, and when their handiwork just begins to do them credit, kick them out." "I think it would be well for you to get up and dress for breakfast," was Theodore's quiet answer. "Why don't you give it up, Mallery?" persisted Pliny, making no effort to change his position. "Don't you see it's no sort of use; no one was ever more possessed to be a fool than I am. What have all my everlasting promises amounted to but straws! I tell you, my father designed and planned me for a drunkard, and I'm living up to the light that has been given me." "I see it is quite time you were ready for breakfast, Pliny. I am waiting, and _have_ been for two hours, and I really haven't time to waste, while you lie there and talk nonsense. Whatever else you do, don't be foolish enough to cast all the blame of your misdeeds on your father." Pliny turned fiercely. "Who else is there to blame, I should like to know?" he asked, savagely. "Didn't he give me the sugar to sip from the bottom of his brandy glass in my babyhood? Haven't I drank my wine at his table, sitting by his side, three times a day for at least fifteen years? Haven't I seen him frown on every effort at temperance reform throughout the country? Haven't I seen him sneer at my weak, feeble efforts to break away from the demon with which he has constantly tempted me? If he didn't rear me up for a drunkard, what in the name of heaven _am_ I designed for after such a training?" "Pliny," said Theodore, speaking low and with great significance, "for what do you suppose _my_ father designed and reared _me_?"