But how to go to work?
If the man were like himself it would be an easy matter.

More than once he remembered how his cousins had shifted the blame for their own boyish pranks upon him.

In the presence of their father they would accuse Bull with a well-planned lie, and the very fact that he had been accused made Bull blush and hang his head.

Before he could be heard in his own behalf the cruel eye of his uncle had grown stern, and Bull was condemned as a culprit.
"The only time you show any sense," his uncle had said more than once, "is when you want to do something you hadn't ought to do!" Steadily through the years he had served as a scapegoat for his cousins.

They set a certain value upon him for his use in this respect.