“But my mother!” pleaded “Dodd.”

“It is a fine time for you to plead your mother now, isn’t it?” replied Mr. Bright.  “How much you have considered her and her feelings in the last few years,” he continued.  “When you have been drunk on the streets; when you have abused the hospitality of a gentleman; when you have lied to me and obtained money from me under false pretenses, then was the time for you to plead for sparing your mother.  You did nothing toward that then.  I will not help you now.”

Mr. Bright spoke firmly, and in a straight-forward tone.  “Dodd” shrank under his words as though they were lashes on a bare back.  But once more he pleaded: 

“I don’t know who will help me if you don’t, and some one must help me, for I can’t suffer this disgrace.”

“Well, no one shall help you if I can prevent it,” replied Mr. Bright.  “What you need, young man, is to help yourself.  If you haven’t virtue enough left to do this, you might as well go to jail, or into your grave—­it doesn’t make much difference which.  You are of no manner of use in this world as you are now.  You are worse than useless, you are a dead load to your friends, your acquaintances, and society.”

Mr. Bright laid on tremendously, now that he had begun, and “Dodd” writhed under his strokes.  The last flagellation left them both out of breath, and there was silence in the room for some minutes.  It was Mr. Bright who spoke first: 

“‘Dodd,’ my boy,” he said, “I need not tell you how it pains me thus to talk to you, you for whom I have striven so hard, and from whom I had hoped for so much.  You are naturally bright, but you are fickle by nature, and, so far, you have lacked the manhood to correct this fault.  You are the only one who can ever do this.  So one else can do it for you.  If ever you stand up like a man, it must be on your own feet.  I tried to teach you this long ago.  I think I failed.  At least is seems so now.  You did stand for a while though, my boy, and I would to God you could do so again.”

“Dodd” sat in his chair shedding bitter tears; he began feebly: 

“Help me this once,” he begged, “and before God, I promise you I will never give you cause to be ashamed of me again.”

“Keep your pledges to yourself,” returned Mr. Bright.  “I want none of them.  They are of no value whatever.  You have come to a time now when you must do something more than pledge, though there was a time when your word was good, and I would have taken it, unquestioned, on any occasion.  But that time is past.  It may come again, but the chances are against it.”

“You are making me out a monster,” interlarded “Dodd,” with an attempt at injured innocence in his voice.

“And that is just what you are,” said Mr. Bright.  “You have grown out of all semblance to the true type of a man.  You are wicked, deceitful, weak, vacillating, and untruthful.  So long as you retain these qualities there is no hope for you.  Perhaps a punishment of a term in jail may serve to bring you to a sense of your condition.  If it will, it is the best thing that can happen to you.  Anyhow, I am willing to see it tried.”