"Possibly," said Mr. Wright with dignity, "you are, to some extent, correct. But a man cannot permit his only son to run wild and founder."
"Sam won't founder. But he may get a bad strain. You'd better look out.
He is his father's son."
"I do not know, sir, to what you refer."
"Oh, yes, you do," Dr. Lavendar assured him easily; "and you know that no man can experience unforgiving anger, and not be crippled. You didn't founder, Sam, but you gave yourself a mighty ugly wrench. Hey? Isn't that so?"
The senior warden looked perfectly deaf; then he took up the tale again.
"If he goes on in his folly he will only be unhappy, and deservedly so. She will have nothing to do with him. In stopping him, I shall only be keeping him from future unhappiness."
"Samuel," said Dr. Lavendar, "I never begrudge unhappiness to the young."
But Mr., Wright was too absorbed in his own troubles to get any comfort out of that.
"By the way," said Dr. Lavendar, "speaking of Mrs. Richie—do you think she'd be a good person to take this little David Allison?"
"I don't know why she shouldn't be, sir," Samuel said. "I have no fault to find with her. She pays her rent and goes to church. Yes; a very good person to take the boy off your hands."