'Splitting hairs don't you mean, Chris?' asked Mrs. Winthrop with a half-smile; 'but I see the difference, Snap. There is no disgrace about this, is there?'
'No, I didn't think so,' replied Snap, 'but my uncle says I am a disgrace to my family and always shall be.'
'He always did say that,' muttered the Admiral. 'Never mind what your uncle says; I mean,' added the old gentleman, correcting himself, 'don't take it too much to heart. You see he has very strict ideas of what young lads should be.'
'What is it that you have been doing, Snap? Is it too bad to tell me?' asked Mrs. Winthrop after a while.
For a moment the boy hung his head, thinking, and then raised it with a proud look in his eyes.
'No, dear,' he said, dropping unconsciously into an old habit, 'it isn't, and so it can't be very bad!' And with that he told the whole foolish story of his share in the smoking orgy, of his reprieve, of the mop incident and the bolster fight, and, last of all, of that Fernhall ghost.
At this part of the recital of his wrongdoings the Admiral's face, which had been growing redder and redder all the time, got fairly beyond control, and the old gentleman nearly went into convulsions of laughter. 'Shameful, sir; gross breach of discipline, sir; ha! ha! ha! "Don't like me in the spirit, had better take me in the flesh." Capital—cap—infamous, I mean, infamous. Your uncle never did anything like that, sir, not he,' spluttered the veteran; 'couldn't have done if he had tried,' he added sotto voce.
'But,' said Mrs. Winthrop, after a pause, 'what are you going to do, Snap?'
'My uncle wants me to go into the Church or Mr. Mathieson's office,' replied the boy.
'The Church or Mr. Mathieson's office—that is a strange choice, isn't it?' asked his friend. 'Which do you mean to do?'