“Why don’t you hurry along,” called Jim, “and not keep a fellow standing all night in the cold?”

“I am not going.  Won’t you come in?” said Harry.

“Not going!  Your mother surely doesn’t object to your looking at a billiard table!”

“She would prefer I should not go,” said Harry, and Jim’s only reply was a significant whistle, as he walked off.

[Illustration:  "I wonder if my son feels too old for a story?"]

“He’ll be sure to tell all the boys!” said Harry, half aloud, as he shut the front door with rather more force than was necessary.  “I don’t see what does make father and mother so particular.”  Then, entering the parlor, he took the first book that came to hand from the table, and, taking a seat very far from the light, looked exceedingly unamiable.

His father laid aside the paper, and without seeming to notice Harry’s mood, said pleasantly, “I wonder if my son feels himself too old for a story; if not I have one to tell him which might well be named, ’Only This Once.’” The book was returned to the table; but Harry still kept thinking of what the boys would say when Jim told an exaggerated story, and his countenance remained unchanged.

“When I was about your age, Harry,” began his father, “we lived next door to Mr. Allen, a very wealthy gentleman, who had one son.  As Frank was a good-natured, merry boy, and had his two beautiful ponies, several dogs, and a large playground, he soon made friends.

“Many an afternoon did we spend together, riding the ponies, or playing ball on the playground, and one summer afternoon in particular, I never expect to forget, for it seems to me now, looking back upon it, as the turning point of Frank’s life; but we little thought of such a thing at the time.

“It was a very warm afternoon; and, becoming tired of playing ball, we had stopped to rest on the piazza, when Frank proposed that we should take the ponies to a plank road a few miles from the house, and race them.  I was certain that his father would disapprove of this, and, besides, it would have been most cruel work on such a warm afternoon, so I tried to make Frank think of something else he would like to do instead; but all in vain.

“‘I think you might go, Charlie,’ he said.  ’What’s the harm of doing it; only this once?  I just want to see if either of my ponies is likely to be a fast trotter.’

“For one moment I hesitated, but in the next came the thought of my father’s displeasure, and I shook my head.

“’Very well, just as you please, Mr. Good Boy!  I know plenty who will be glad of the chance to ride Jet;’ and so saying he walked away.

“Frank did find a boy who was delighted to go with him, and enjoyed the race so much that, notwithstanding his father’s reprimand, he managed to pursue the same sport more times than ‘only that once.’

“As soon as the summer was ended, Mr. Allen went to Europe for his health, and I did not see his son again for three years, till I left the country and entered the same college with him.