"Ah!" sighed Sidney, "it was a long pull."
"You'll have learned by this that a lie never prospers—that in the long run it confronts you again when least expected, to make your cheek burn with your own baseness. I wonder now," gravely surveying his son, "whether you would have let that girl off, if there had been no hope of the brooch coming to light."
The boy hesitated—then looked full at his sire.
"Well—I think I should."
"I think you told a lie for twelve and sixpence—the devil got a bargain from a Hinchford."
"You're rather hard upon me, pa," complained the boy, "and it wasn't for twelve and sixpence, because I never got the brooch back; and if I ever tell another lie, may I never see twelve and sixpence of my own again. There!"
"Bravo, Sid!—that's a promise I'm glad to have wormed out of you, somehow. And yet—ye gods!—what a promise!"
"I'll keep it—see if I don't," said Master Sidney, with his lips compressed, and his cheeks a little flushed.
The father shook his head slowly.
"You are going into business—you will be a business man,—presently a City man—one who will drive hard bargains, make hard bargains, and have to fight his way through a hundred thousand liars. In the pursuit of money—above all, in the scraping together of that fugitive article, you must lie, or let a good chance go by to turn an honest penny. I can't expect you much better than other men, Sid."