"The meanness, my dear boy, depends entirely upon the view you take of it. Now, the question with me, as a man of honour (and I may tell you an over-nice sense of honour has been a drawback I've had to struggle against all my life), the question with me is this: Is it not my plain duty to step in and put a stop to this topsy-turvy state of things, to show you up as the barefaced young impostor you are, and restore my unhappy brother-in-law to his proper position?" "Very well expressed," thought Paul, who had been getting uncomfortable; "he has a heart, as he said, after all!" "How does that seem to strike you?" added Paradine. "It shtrikes me as awful rot," said Dick, with refreshing candour. "It's the language of conscience, but I don't expect you to see it in the same light. I don't mind confessing to you, either, that I'm a poor devil to whom money and a safe and respectable position (all of which I have here) are great considerations. But whenever I see the finger of duty and honour and family affection all beckoning me along a particular road, I make a point of obeying their monitions--occasionally. I don't mean to say that I never have bolted down a back way, instead, when it was made worth my while, or that I never will." "I wonder what he's driving at now," thought Paul. "I don't know about duty and honour, and all that," said Dick; "my head aches, it's the noise they're making upstairs. Are you goin' to tell?" "The fact is, my dear boy, that when one has had a keen sense of honour in constant use for several years, it's like most other articles, apt to become a little the worse for wear. Mine is not what it used to be, Dicky (that's your name, isn't it?). Our powers fail as we grow old." "I don' know what you're talking about!" said Dick helplessly. "Do tell me what you mean to do." "Well then, your head's clear enough to understand this much, I hope," said Paradine a little impatiently, "that, if I did my duty and exposed you, you wouldn't be able to keep up the farce for a single hour, in spite of all your personal advantages--you know that, don't you?" "I shpose I know that," said Dick feebly. "You know too, that if I could be induced--mind, I don't say I can--to hold my tongue and stay on here and look after you and keep you from betraying yourself by any more of these schoolboy follies, there's not much fear that anyone else will ever find out the secret----" "Which are you going to do, then?" said Dick. "Suppose I say that I like you, that you have shown me more kindness in a single week than ever your respectable father has since I first made his acquaintance? Suppose I say that I am willing to let the sense of honour and duty, and all the rest of it, go overboard together; that we two together are a match for Papa, wherever he may be and whatever he chooses to say and do?"