"He did so inform me. And his fairness and frankness in doing so was an inducing cause of my favorable consideration of his request."
Pen felt that the ground was being cut away from under his feet, but he still had one grievance left.
"Anyway," he exclaimed, "he might have told me about your giving the whole flag, instead of letting me go around like a monkey, collecting pennies for nothing."
"Very true, Penfield, he should have told you. Didn't he intimate to you in any way what I had done? Didn't he offer to show you his subscription blank containing my letter?"
"Why—why, yes, I believe he did."
"And you declined to look at it?"
"Yes, I declined to look at it. I considered it none of my business. But he might have told me what was on it."
"My dear grandson; this is a case in which the alertness of your school-fellow, added to your failure to keep an engagement and to grasp a situation, has led to your discomfiture. Let this be a lesson to you to be diligent, vigilant and forearmed. Only thus are great battles won."
Again the colonel placed his glasses on the hook on the breast of his waistcoat, and resumed his activity in connection with his evening meal. It was plain that he considered the discussion at an end.