"I'm sure I thought you must be on fire down here, sir," said he. "What confounded sneaks they are, to apply to you! I can't understand their doing it."
"Sneaks be shot!" cried the wrathful major. "Do you owe all this, or don't you? That's the question."
"Why, the letter was addressed to me!" exclaimed Charles, who had been examining the envelope. "I must say, sir, you might allow me to open my own letters."
But the major was guiltless of any want of faith. The mistake was the butler's. He had inadvertently placed the letter amongst his master's letters, and the major opened it without glancing at the address.
"What does it signify, do you suppose, whether I opened it or you?" demanded the major. "Not that I did it intentionally. I should have to know of it: you can't pay this."
"They can wait," said Charles.
"Wait! Do you mean to confess that you have had all this wine?" retorted the major, irascible for once. "Why, you must be growing into—into what I don't care to name!"
"You can't suppose that I drank it, sir. The other undergrads give wine parties, and I have to do the same. They drink the wine; I don't."
"That is, you drink it amongst you," roared the major; "and a nice disreputable lot you must all be. I understood that young men went to college to study; not to drink, and run up bills. What else do you owe? Is this all?"
Charles hesitated in answering. An untruth he would not tell. The major saw what the hesitation meant, and it alarmed him. When we become frightened our wrath cools down. The major dropped into a chair, and lost his fierceness and his voice together.