“Yes.”
“How old is he?”
“Seventeen.”
“Then he is a year older than Gerald—I remember now he was about a year old when Gerald was born. Is he living at home with his parents?”
“He is at an academy preparing for Yale College.”
“Ah!” said Warren Lane with a sigh, “he is enjoying the advantages I would like to give my boy. Is he studious?”
“Don’t ask me!” replied Wentworth bitterly. “He has developed a far greater talent for spending money foolishly than for Latin or Greek.”
“Being the son of a rich man, his temptations are greater than if, like Gerald, he were born to poverty.”
“Perhaps so, but his taste for drink does not result from the possession of money. He has classmates quite as rich as he who are perfectly steady, and doing credit to their families.”