He therefore replied somewhat sharply.

The father, who instantly remarked the tone, suddenly changed his own manner.

’Are you serious in coming here and saying that your father is talking nonsense?’

‘I did not say that; I only said that you were mistaken.’

‘The words are of little moment, but the meaning was there,’ said the merchant, who was beginning to get angry.  For he heard a gentleman say to his neighbour: 

‘If this had only happened in my father’s time!’

One word now drew forth another, and the situation became extremely painful.

The hostess, who had always an attentive ear for the gentlemen’s conversation, as she knew her husband’s hasty temper, immediately came and looked in at the door.

‘What is it, Adjunct [Footnote:  Assistant-teacher.] Hansen?’

‘Ah,’ replied Hansen, ‘your son has forgotten himself a little.’

’To his own father!  He must have had too much to drink.  Dear Hansen, try and get him out.’

The Adjunct, who was more well-meaning than diplomatic, and who, besides (a rarer thing with old teachers than is generally supposed) was esteemed by his former pupils, went and took the student without ceremony by the arm, saying:  ’Come, shall we two take a turn in the garden?’

The young man turned round violently, but when he saw that it was the old teacher, and received, at the same time, a troubled, imploring glance from his mother, he passively allowed himself to be led away.

While in the doorway, he heard the lawyer, whom he had never been able to endure, say something about the egg that would teach the hen to lay, which witticism was received with uproarious laughter.  A thrill passed through him; but the Adjunct held him firmly, and out they went.

It was long before the old teacher could get him sufficiently quieted to become susceptible to reason.  The disappointment, the bitter sense of being at variance with his father, and, not least, the affront of being treated as a boy in the presence of so many—­all this had to pour out for awhile.

But at last he became calm, and sat down with his old friend, who now pointed out to him that it must be very painful to an elderly man to be corrected by a mere youth.

‘Yes, but I was right,’ said the student, certainly for the twentieth time.

’Good, good! but yet you must not put on an air of wanting to be wiser than your own father.’

‘Why, my father himself said that he would have it so.’

‘What?  When did your father say that?’ The teacher almost began to believe that the wine had gone to the young gentleman’s head.

‘At the table—­in his speech.’