"I suppose you went to the billiard-room; I understand that you frequent that disreputable place."
"Then you are misinformed. I went there one evening with Mr. Brandon, Mr. Tubbs' clerk."
"Where, then, did you go?"
"To Mr. Nugent's."
"You seem to have struck up quite an intimacy with Mr. Nugent," said his stepmother, with a sneer.
"I hope you don't consider him a disreputable person, Mrs. Lane."
"You are impertinent. You have no right to annoy him by late visits."
"I don't. He is always glad to see me; to-night, particularly, he had some business which he wished to talk over with me."
Abel laughed.
"Hear him talk, ma!" he said. "Just as if Mr. Nugent would talk over business with Gerald!"