And, seeing you're as big as your offspring--six-foot-one, and you can't deny it--and fairly husky for a man of your age, I'll bet all you dare that said swath was not of the narrow-gage variety.

I've never heard of your teaching a class in any Sunday-school, and if you never drove your machine beyond the dead-line and cracked champagne-bottles on the wheels in front of the Cliff House, it's because automobiles weren't invented and Cliff House wasn't built.

Begging your pardon, dad--I'll bet you were a pretty rollicky young blade, yourself." Now dad is very old-fashioned in some of his notions; one of them is that a parent may hand out a roast that will frizzle the foliage for blocks around, and, guilty or innocent, the son must take it, as he'd take cod-liver oil--it's-nasty-but-good-for-what-ails-you.

He snapped his mouth shut, and, being his son and having that habit myself, I recognized the symptoms and judged that things would presently grow interesting.
I was betting on a full-house.

The atmosphere grew tense.