"You would make your boy a beggar to gratify a foolish whim!" retorted my
mother, her voice trembling with passion. I had never seen her so, and
even my father glanced at her furtively in some astonishment. "Very well.
In that it is for you to do as you may choose, but his estate here, or
what is left of it, shall be kept intact for him."

"What do you mean?" cried my father, and he sprang to his feet and
slashed his boot savagely with his riding-whip.

"I mean," said my mother very quietly, "that since a gambling debt is not
recoverable by law, we have only to live on quietly here and no one will
dare disturb us."

"And my honor?" cried my father with an oath, the first I had ever heard
him use. "It seems to me that you forget my honor, madam."

"You have been the first to forget your honor, sir," said my mother,
rising to face him, but still keeping me within her arm, "in staking your
son's inheritance upon a throw of the dice."

My father started as though he had been struck across the face, but he
was too far gone in anger to listen to the voice of reason. Indeed, I
have always found that the more a man deserves rebuke, the less likely is
he to take it quietly.

"Come here, Tom," he said to me, and when I hesitated, added in a sterner
tone, "come here, sir, I say."

I had no choice but to go to him, nor did my mother seek to hold me back.
He caught me by the arms and bent until his face was close to mine.