Coburn turned with a leap of astonishment and stared at Dr. Watson. And the smile he saw on the headmaster’s face outshone that on the faces of his audience as the sun outshines the moon.
But no one save Dr. Watson saw the perfect radiance that flowed out from the face of Douglas Owen....
“I’m sorry, sir,” was all that Douglas said.
Dr. Watson dropped his birch as if it had burnt him.
His second address to the school was hesitating and apologetic. He tried to explain that when the clear signs of repentance and of reform were so evident as they were in the case of Owen, corporal punishment was superfluous and would be little short of criminal. Yet even Coburn, who so profoundly agreed with the principle expounded, found the explanation unsatisfying. He could not help feeling that Dr. Watson was concealing his true reason.
Nevertheless, it is well to note that after this reprieve Douglas passed the remainder of his school-life without committing any other serious offence.
He was only thirty-two when he came before the last and most terrible tribunal possible in our society.
After he left Cambridge, he was taken into a city office by a friend of his father’s. Everyone liked him, and he might have made an excellent position for himself if he had not led such a loose life out of business hours. He seemed unable to resist any temptation, and the inevitable result was that he got into debt.
When his father’s friend discovered the extent of Douglas’s thefts from the firm, he had no choice but to dismiss him; although for the young man’s sake not less than for the sake of his friendship with his father, he never even threatened prosecution.
For a time Douglas lived at home. Later he went to Canada for a couple of years. Then his father died, leaving him some five or six thousand pounds, and he came home again—to spend it. When that money was all gone, he lived on the charity of his many friends. They all knew him for an incorrigible scamp, but he still retained much of his old charm.