“Why don’t you know?” persisted the Health Master relentlessly. “You are his father, and, what is more, his friend.”
“Why must Manny know?” cried Mrs. Clyde. “Surely my son isn’t going to wallow in that sort of foulness.”
“Pray God he is not!” said Grandma Sharpless, turning her old, shrewd, kind face, the eyes bright and soft with feeling, toward her daughter. “But, oh, my dear, my dear, the bitterest lesson we mothers have to learn is that our children are of the common flesh and blood of humanity.”
“Manny is clean-minded and high-spirited,” said Strong. “But not all of his companions are. Not a month ago I heard one of the older boys in his class assuring some of his fellows, in the terms of the most damnable lie that ever helped to corrupt youth, ‘Why, it ain’t any worse than an ordinary cold.’”
“That was a stock phrase of the young toughs when I was a boy,” said Mr. Clyde. “So it still persists, does it?”
“Any worse than an ordinary cold?” repeated Mrs. Clyde, looking puzzled. “What did he mean?”
“Gonorrhoea,” said Dr. Strong.
Mrs. Clyde winced back and half-rose from her chair.
“Are you going?” asked the Health Master rather ‘grimly. “Must I be mealy-mouthed on this subject? Here I am, trying to tell you something of the most deadly import, and am I to choose perfumed words and pick rose-tinted phrases?”
“Speak out, Strong,” said the head of the house. “I’ve been rather expecting this.”