"You showed yourself to be a coward," replied the doctor. "What do you think of cowards?"
"They'd have called me a coward if I hadn't drunk it," said Jack.
"Yes," said the doctor, "and that's what you were cowardly about, can't you see?"
Jack admitted that he could.
"Wouldn't it have taken more bravery to have laughed and fought down such a charge, than it required to drink the liquor?" asked the doctor.
"Yes, sir. And I want to be punished for being a coward too."
"Goodness!" exclaimed the doctor, seizing his hat and vanishing. A few minutes later the Reverend Mr. Daybright, just as he had entered his study, received a call from Dr. Wittingham, and the doctor promptly proceeded to detail Jack's case and ask for advice. Now Mr. Daybright belonged to a denomination which has very pronounced ideas on the subject of sin and punishment, and the minister preached as his church believed, and was sure that he believed what he preached, yet he counselled the doctor to let the boy alone.
"But he wants to be punished," urged the doctor.
"What good can it do him?" asked the minister; "if he is in that frame of mind, the sole object of punishment is attained in advance."
"But he has done wrong; he has kept his mother and me in intolerable misery for twenty-four hours, and it seems to me that something should be done to him."