“My wife had a most shocking experience recently,” he said. “We sent our daughter to Mrs. Willard’s school at Troy and what do you suppose they taught that poor child, sir? I should not have believed it if my wife had not told me. She could never have believed it if she had not seen it with her own eyes. “A woman teacher, a most unwomanly teacher, drew on a blackboard, sir, pictures of the internal organs of women, the heart, the arteries, and the veins! Yes, sir, by God, sir, she did! My wife and several mothers who chanced to be visiting the classroom rose in their indignation and left the room. They were too shocked to command their daughters to violate the discipline of the school. But I shall withdraw my daughter from such precincts, I assure you. Is nothing to be sacred? Is everything to be spoken of openly in these atheistic times? I ask you, sir, I ask you!” Chalender winked at RoBards while the old gentleman’s tears of wrath salted his port. Chalender wailed, “But nobody tells me how to apologize for saying corsets.” He was incorrigible. RoBards felt that his own predicament was as silly as Chalender’s, yet it was of equal torment. How could he rid himself of Mr. Webster? How could he endure his ponderous association? The giant grew less and less awesome as he absorbed more and more liquor. RoBards began to hope that all memory of his pledge to Patty might be lost in the enormous ache which that enormous head would feel the next morning. It was not. On the next morning, Patty received a note from the Astor House where Mr. Webster lived when in New York. She took it to her father with a cry of pride: “See, papa, what I’ve brought you, Mr. Webster’s head on a platter.” All that RoBards could say in self-defense was a rather petty sarcasm: “I hope that Mr. Webster doesn’t do for you what he did not long ago: he drank so much that he tried the wrong side of the case.” Patty snapped back at him: “Yes, but before he sat down, someone told him of his mistake, and he went right on and answered all his own arguments—and won for his client: as he will for Papa.” “I hope so,” RoBards groaned, wondering if he really hoped so. Old Jessamine was so sure now of his two hundred thousand dollars that he decided to spend more of it in making doubly sure. He would engage the next best lawyer in America, Benjamin F. Butler. “With Webster and Butler as my counsel,” he roared, “I’ll make even this old city pay its honest debts.” RoBards’ head drooped as he noted that his own name was not even mentioned, though he had fought the case for ten years at his own expense and must instruct the two Titans in all its details. He felt a little meaner than ever when Patty noted his shameful distress and said: “Don’t forget, papa, that you have also the distinguished assistance of the eminent Mr. David RoBards.” “Umm—ah—yes! Yes, yes, of course, of course!”