Meanwhile Perry, sullen and defiant, listened to his father's reproaches, which were neither few nor mild.
"To think that a son of mine should be a drunkard! A man of my position in both business and religious circles! Young man, it is positively outrageous!"
"Father," said Perry, with a sneer, "I wouldn't find so much fault with my own work if I were you. If I am a drunkard, you made me one."
"I made you one! What an abominable story to invent! Pray tell me how I, a temperance man, succeeded so admirably in the work you credit me with."
"I don't know what you mean by being a 'temperance man;' but I do know that when Mr. Spencer was here lecturing upon temperance, he one Sunday spoke to the Sunday-school, and after he had spoken a while, he asked all who would promise to abstain from intoxicating drink to rise. Almost everybody in the church rose, and I was just going to get up with the rest of our class, when I looked over and saw you keeping your seat, and I thought that if you didn't think such a pledge was right for you, of course it wouldn't be for me. And that is how I came to be a drunkard, sir! If I had taken that pledge, I should have kept it."
For a moment Mr. Morse was confounded, but recovering himself, he said—
"Of course that is nonsense, Perry. You know very well that I do not believe in total abstinence pledges, but that I do believe in temperance. There is a vast difference between an occasional glass of wine, or even an habitual glass, and this drinking to excess, frequenting saloons, and being brought home dead drunk."
"Won't you please to tell me how a fellow is going to know just where temperance ends and intemperance begins?" asked Perry, in a sarcastic tone.
"I should think you had tried the experiment times enough to find out for yourself," retorted his father sharply.
"I reckon you'll have some trouble to lay the rest of your confounded follies upon my shoulders," he said, after a pause. "You can't accuse me of training you in the art of gambling. I never played a game of cards in my life—or stole a dollar," he added bitterly.