“Now ‘Dodd,’” said Mr. Bright, speaking to the boy for the first time since he had called him back in the school room, “tell me about this.”

“Dodd” hesitated a minute, eyeing his teacher defiantly, and finally grumbled: 

“I have not got anything to tell.”

At this the parson came very near going off into another paroxysm, but a look from Mr. Bright checked him, and be sank back into his chair, almost in collapse.

Then Mr. Bright spoke, directing all his attention to “Dodd.”

“My boy,” he said, “it is useless for either of us to go over what has been said and done in the last hour or two.  I need not tell, nor need I ask you to tell, how thoroughly outrageous your conduct has been.  But I want to say this to you right here:  I want you to steady yourself right down as soon as you can and get to thinking reasonably about this matter.  There is only one thing that I am afraid of in this affair, and that is that it will result in great loss to you, if you are not careful.  You have insulted your fellow students, you have defied the reasonable authority of the school, and you have lied to your parents.  I don’t care anything about what you have done to me, or said about me—­let that go; but I do care about the other things, and I am anxious to have you make them right as soon as possible, before it is too late.”

You know, good people, that when a bone is broken, the thing that needs to be done is to set it as soon as possible; if it is left out of place very long, it is ten times as hard to put it right again as it would have been at first, and, even if set at last, it is apt to grow together imperfectly, or perhaps make a crooked limb ever after.  The sooner a fault is redressed, the better for all parties to it.

“So now I have this to say to you,” Mr. Bright went on: 

“I don’t want you to drop out of school on account of this occurrence.  This is what you are in danger of doing, and it is the very thing you ought not to do.  You have been doing well in your work for a good while now, and you can’t afford to let this affair break you off.”

“Well, I guess it won’t hurt anybody but myself, and that is my own business,” said “Dodd” sulkily.

Off, away off as yet.  Drawn, but unwilling to come.  Seeing, knowing what he should do, but, ruled by some rebellious devil, persistently turning away and doing the other thing.  It is the way of perverse human nature.  Call it “total depravity,” “original sin,” “infirmity,” “the natural man,” I don’t care what, only this—­recognize the condition and deal with it, when you come squarely up against it, so that it will not ruin its victim.