“Took him off his guard, didn’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“Was that fair? Was that sportsmanlike?”
“Perhaps not, if you put it that way.”
“But that’s the way to put it, isn’t it?”
“Well, if any one tries to put anything over on me I don’t stop long to consider. I hit back.”
“Exactly! Now, look here, Ben! I want to say something to you. You’re a pretty good sort, and I rather like you. But you pattern too much after your father. He thinks he’s right all the time, and that every one who doesn’t agree with him is wrong. That’s nonsense and I’ve told him so to his face. If you want to get on you’ll have to drop that big I you carry around with you and concede something to the other fellow. He may be more than half right. For instance, when Hal pulls himself together, as he will in a day or two, you tell him, as you’ve admitted to me, that the stand he took in this matter wasn’t very far from right, and that you were rather hasty in resenting it. He’ll meet you more than half-way, I promise you. And you can tell him, too, that if he ever calls you a puppy when you don’t deserve the name, you’ll smash his face for him, and that I’ll back you up in it. There, I guess that’ll be all for to-day. Give my love to your mother, and tell her I’m going to call on her to-morrow.”
“Thank you, Miss Halpert, I will.”
As Ben left the house and walked down the street his mind was filled with conflicting emotions. He had been reproved, commended and admonished. And now, at the end of it all, he felt neither angry nor resentful. His self-respect was not diminished, but there seemed to have been added to his mental equipment a new sense of the responsibilities of manhood.