Oscar remained silent.

“I am sorry,” continued his father, “that you will not take up with my offer; for though I do not think it important that you should get the watch, it is important that you should reform some of your habits.  You are getting to be altogether too wayward and headstrong, as well as vain.”

“If I get into the High School next summer, may I have the watch?” inquired Oscar.

“No,” replied his father, “not unless you comply with the other conditions.  But I want you to remember what I told you the other day, that if you don’t get into the High School at that time, I shall send you to some boarding-school away from home, where you will be made to study, and to behave yourself too.  If strict discipline can do anything for you, you shall have the benefit of it, you may depend upon that.”

Oscar was now two-thirds of the way through his last year in the school he attended.  His parents were anxious that he should go through the High School course of studies, and, indeed, he had applied for admission to that school the summer previous to this, but did not pass the examination.  There was still some doubt whether he would succeed any better at the next examination; and in case of his failure, his parents had decided to send him to a boarding-school in the country.  But there was nothing very alarming to him in the idea of going into such an establishment, notwithstanding all his father said of the strict discipline to which he would be subjected.  There would be a novelty about it, he imagined, that would make it quite pleasant.  Consequently, he cared very little whether he was accepted as a High School pupil or not.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MORAL LESSON.

Oscar had the name among his fellows of being a shrewd and sharp boy at a bargain; and, like too many men who have acquired a similar reputation, he was not over-scrupulous in his manner of conducting his business operations.  If he could drive a profitable trade, it mattered little how he did it; and if somebody else lost as much as he gained by the bargain, that was not his business; every one must look out for himself.  So he reasoned, and so constantly did he act on this principle, that, to tell the truth, his integrity was by no means unimpeachable among his comrades.  It was a very general opinion, that in many of their boyish games, such as marbles, he would cheat if he could get a chance; and the notion was equally prevalent, that in a bargain, he was pretty sure to get decidedly the best end.