Now, before you meet him, I want you to plainly understand the truth about this unfortunate affair; and that's why I telephoned your gimlet-eyed friend Neergard just now to let you come around here for half an hour." The boy nodded and, drawing a gold matchbox from his waistcoat pocket, lighted his cigarette.
"Why the devil don't you smoke cigars ?" growled Austin, more to himself than to Gerald; then, pocketing the gold piece, seated himself heavily in his big leather desk-chair.
"In the first place," he said, "Captain Selwyn is my brother-in-law--which wouldn't make an atom of difference to me in my judgment of what has happened if he had been at fault.

But the facts of the case are these." He held up an impressive forefinger and laid it flat across the large, ruddy palm of the other hand.

"First of all, he married a cat! C-a-t, cat.

Is that clear, Gerald ?" "Yes, sir." "Good! What sort of a dance she led him out there in Manila, I've heard.
Never mind that, now.

What I want you to know is how he behaved--with what quiet dignity, steady patience, and sweet temper under constant provocation and mortification, he conducted himself.