"Yes, sir."
The doctor was silent for several minutes, and then said:
"I don't know what to say to you or do to you, my son. You know what I have said to you about your fighting habit, and you know that I mean it, for I have not only talked to you, but punished you. When I found you had been reading history I took new hope, for I thought you must have got past the fighting age and given your mind to better things. But here you are again with the marks of a pugilist."
"I don't fight when I can help it, and I'm afraid I never shall get past the fighting age," said George.
"Don't fight when you can help it?" said his father. "Can't you always help it?"
"I might by running away. Do you want me to do that?" the boy answered quietly.
"Of course I don't," said the doctor quickly. "But can't you keep away?"
"I have to go to school," said George, "and I have to be with the boys; and some of them are quarrelsome, and some are full of conceit, and some need a good licking now and then."
"And you consider it your duty to administer it," said the doctor. "Conceit is a crime that can not be too severely punished."
The boy felt the irony of his father's remark, and saw that he did not quite understand that use of the word "conceit," so he proceeded to explain: