"Our mistakes? Was I not right in believing you had a competent
instructor? I begin to fear your education is deficient. Surely you have
agility and courage. Why a mistake, my son?"

"The mistake," I replied, "was in the beginning and not in the end. I
made the error in believing he told an untruth."

"Indeed?" said my father. "Thank you, Brutus, I have had wine enough for
the evening. Do you not consider your error--how shall we put it--quite
inexcusable in view of the other things you have doubtless heard?"

But I could only stare dumbly at him across the table.

"Come, come," he continued. "How goes the gossip now? Surely there is
more about me. Surely you have heard"--he paused to drain the dregs in
his glass--"the rest?"

I eyed him for a moment in silence before I answered, but he met my
glance fairly, indulging apparently in the same curiosity, half idle,
half cynical, that he might have displayed before some episode of the
theatre. It was a useless question that he asked. He knew too well that
the answer was obvious.

"Yes," I said, "I have heard it."

"So," he exclaimed cheerfully, "my reputation still continues. Wonderful,
is it not, how durable a bad reputation is, and how fragile a good one.
One bounds back like a rubber ball. The other shatters like a lustre
punch bowl. And did the same young man--I presume he was young--enlighten
you about this, the most fatal parental weakness?"