Everything conspired to give a dignity in keeping with the drama of failure being unfolded in the commonplace home of the widow Tynan.

Yet the home too had its dignity.

The engineer father had had tastes, and he had insisted on plain, unfigured curtains and wallpaper and carpets, when carpets were used; and though his wife had at first protested against the unfigured carpets as more difficult to keep clean and as showing the dirt too easily, she had come to like the one-colour scheme, and in that respect her home had an individuality rare in her surroundings.
That was why Kitty Tynan had always a good background; for what her bright colouring would have been in the midst of gaudy, cheap chintzes and "Axminsters," such as abounded in Askatoon, is better left to the imagination.

It was not, therefore, in sordid, mean, or incongruous surroundings that Crozier told his tale; as would no doubt have been arranged by a dramatist, if he had had the making and the setting of the story; and if it were not a true tale told just as it happened.
Perhaps the tale was the more impressive because of Crozier's deep baritone voice, capable, as it was, of much modulation, yet, except when he was excited, having a slight monotone like the note of a violin with the mute upon the strings.
This was his tale: "Well, to begin with, I was born at Castlegarry, in Kerry--you know the main facts from what I said in court.

As a boy I wasn't so bad a sort.
I had one peculiarity.