An hour’s talk cheered the newcomer amazingly, as perhaps did also the dinner odours of frying potatoes and bacon.  He was venturing upon a history of his wrongs when a damper fell upon the little company with the arrival of the man of the house.  Her husband’s return brought back in a flood to old Mrs. Cox’s heart the memory of his outrageous negotiations regarding the house; the three girls all cordially detested the old man and were silent and ungracious in his presence, and Chester flushed deeply as his father came in, and became dumb.

Old Cox made no immediate acknowledgement of the newcomer’s arrival, but grunted as he jerked a chair to the table, indicating his readiness for dinner, and dinner was served with all speed.  It was only when he had drunk off half a cup of scalding strong tea that the man of the house turned to his last born and said: 

“So, you’re out again?”

“I should never have been in!” Chester said, eagerly and huskily.

“Yes, I’ve heard lots of that kind of talk,” the old man assured him. “’Cording to what you hear there’s a good many up there that never done nothing at all!”

Julia saw the son shrink, and a look of infinite wistfulness for a moment darkened his eyes.  He was a stupid-looking, gentle-faced fellow, pitiable as a sick child.

“Perhaps you’ll read these, Pa,” he said, fumbling in his pockets for a moment before producing two or three short newspaper clippings from an inner coat pocket.  “There—­there’s the truth of it; it’s all there,” he said eagerly. “’Cox will immediately be given his freedom—­after sixteen months as an innocent victim of the law’—­that’s what it says!”

“I’ll read nothin’,” the old man said, sweeping back the slips with a scornful hand, his small, deep-set eyes blinking at his son like a monkey’s.

“Well, all right, all right,” Chester answered, his thin face burning again, his voice hoarsely belligerent.

“That’s the jestice you’ll get from your father!” the old woman said, with a cackle.  Julia gathered up the newspaper clippings.

“Aren’t you mean, Grandpa!” she said, indignantly, beginning to read.

“Maybe I am, maybe I am,” he retorted fiercely.  “But you’ll find there’s no smoke without some fire, my fine lady, and when a boy that’s always been a lazy, idle shame to his father and mother gets a taste of blame, you can depend that no newspaper is going to make a saint of him!”

“Grandma, don’t let him talk that way!” Julia protested, her breast rising and falling.  Chester turned to his father.

“Maybe if you’d a-give me a better chance,” he said sullenly, “maybe if us boys hadn’t been kicked around so much, shoved into the first job that came handy, seeing Ma and the girls afraid to breathe while you was in the house—­”

Both men were now standing, their faces close together.

“Well, you ain’t going to have another chance here!” the old man shouted.  “I’ll have no jailbirds settin’ around here to be petted and babied!  Get that into your head!  Don’t you let me come into the house and find you here again—–­”