Now dad is very old-fashioned in some of his notions; one of them is that a parent may hand out a roast that will frizzle the foliage for blocks around, and, guilty or innocent, the son must take it, as he’d take cod-liver oil—­it’s-nasty-but-good-for-what-ails-you.  He snapped his mouth shut, and, being his son and having that habit myself, I recognized the symptoms and judged that things would presently grow interesting.

I was betting on a full-house.  The atmosphere grew tense.  I heard a lot of things in the next five minutes that no one but my dad could say without me trying mighty hard to make him swallow them.  And I just sat there and looked at him and took it.

I couldn’t agree with him that I’d committed a grievous crime.  It wasn’t much of a lark, as larks go:  just an incident at the close of a rather full afternoon.  Coming around up the beach front Ingleside House a few days before, in the Yellow Peril—­my machine—­we got to badgering each other about doing things not orthodox.  At last Barney MacTague dared me to drive the Yellow Peril past the dead-line—­down by the Pavilion—­and on up the hill to Sutro Baths.  Naturally, I couldn’t take a dare like that, and went him one better; I told him I’d not only drive to the very top of the hill, but I’d stop at the Gift House and crack a bottle of champagne on each wheel of the Yellow Peril, in honor of the occasion; that would make a bottle apiece, for there were four of us along.

It was done, to the delight of the usual Sunday crowd of brides, grooms, tourists, and kids.  A mounted policeman interviewed us, to the further delight of the crowd, and invited us to call upon a certain judge whom none of us knew.  We did so, and dad was good enough to pay the fine, which, as I said before, was not much.  I’ve had less fun for more money, often.

Dad didn’t say anything at the time, so I was not looking for the roast I was getting.  It appeared, from his view-point, that I was about as useless, imbecile, and utterly no-account a son as a man ever had, and if there was anything good in me it was not visible except under a strong magnifying-glass.

He said, among other things too painful to mention, that he was getting old—­dad is about fifty-six—­and that if I didn’t buck up and amount to something soon, he didn’t know what was to become of the business.

Then he delivered the knockout blow that he’d been working up to.  He was going to see what there was in me, he said.  He would pay my bills, and, as a birthday gift, he would present me with a through ticket to Osage, in Montana—­where he owned a ranch called the Bay State—­and a stock-saddle, spurs, chaps, and a hundred dollars.  After that I must work out my own salvation—­or the other thing.  If I wanted more money inside a year or two, I would have to work for it just as if I were an orphan without a dad who writes checks on demand.  He said that there was always something to do on the Bay State Ranch—­which is one of dad’s places.  I could do as I pleased, he said, but he’d advise me to buckle down and learn something about cattle.  It was plain I never would amount to anything in an office.  He laid a yard or two of ticket on the table at my elbow, and on top of that a check for one hundred dollars, payable to one Ellis Carleton.