that it was as much as I could do to refrain from laying violent hands upon him. I can see him now lying back in his chair in the old dining-room, when he was hearing me my lessons (for he taught me all I know), a book half-closed upon his knee, looking me up and down with an expression upon his face that seemed to say, 'Who ever would have thought I should have been plagued with such a dolt of a son!' Then, as likely as not, he would lose his temper over my stupidity, box my ears, and send me howling from the room, hating him with all the intensity of which my nature was capable. I wonder if ever a boy before had so strange and unnatural a parent.