href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@37563@[email protected]#CHAPTER_XXVI" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Chapter XXVI.—In which Miss Sudie Adopts the Socratic Method.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

A MAN OF HONOR.

CHAPTER I.

Mr. Pagebrook gets up and calls an Ancient Lawgiver.

Mr. Robert Pagebrook was "blue." There was no denying the fact, and for the first time in his life he admitted it as he lay abed one September morning with his hands locked over the top of his head, while his shapely and muscular body was stretched at lazy length under a scanty covering of sheet. He was snappish too, as his faithful serving man had discovered upon knocking half an hour ago for entrance, and receiving a rather pointed and wholly unreasonable injunction to "go about his business," his sole business lying just then within the precincts of Mr. Robert Pagebrook's room, to which he was thus denied admittance. The old servant had obeyed to the best of his ability, going not about his business but away from it, wondering meanwhile what had come over the young gentleman, whom he had never found moody before.

"MR. ROBERT PAGEBROOK WAS 'BLUE.'"

It was clear that Mr. Robert Pagebrook's reflections were anything but pleasant as he lay there thinking, thinking, thinking—resolving not to think and straightway thinking again harder than ever. His disturbance was due to a combination of causes. His muddy boots were in full view for one thing, and he was painfully conscious that they were not likely to get themselves blacked now that he had driven old Moses away. This reminded him that he had showed temper when Moses's meek knock had disturbed him, and to show temper without proper cause he deemed a weakness. Weaknesses were his pet aversion. Weakness found little toleration with him, particularly when the weakness showed itself in his own person, out of which he had been all his life chastising such infirmities. His petulance with Moses, therefore, contributed to his annoyance, becoming an additional cause of that from which it came as an effect.

Our young gentleman acknowledged, as I have already said, that he was out of spirits, and in the very act of acknowledging it he contemned himself because of it. His sturdy manhood rebelled against its own weakness, and mocked at it, which certainly was not a very good way to cure it. He denied that there was any good excuse for his depression, and scourged himself, mentally, for giving way to it, a process which naturally enough made him give way to it all the more. It depressed him to know that he was weak enough to be depressed. To my thinking he did himself very great injustice. He was, in fact, very unreasonable with himself, and deserved to suffer the consequences. I say this frankly, being the chronicler of this young man's doings and not his apologist by any means. He certainly had good reason to be gloomy, inasmuch as he had two rather troublesome things on his hands, namely, a young man without a situation and a disappointment in love, or fancy, which is often mistaken for love. A circumstance which made the matter worse was that the young man without a situation for whose future Mr. Robert Pagebrook had to provide was Mr. Robert Pagebrook himself. This alone would not have troubled him greatly if it had not been for his other trouble; for the great hulking fellow who lay there with his hands clasped over his head "cogitating," as he would have phrased it, had too much physical force, too much of good health and consequent animal spirits, to distrust either the future or