'Our friend here is in trouble, you see.

It's not far to the village, and what he wants is to get to bed, have a good sleep and then a wash.

He'll feel a different man then.' Helen, her hand at 'our friend's' left shoulder, helped to propel him forward, and ten minutes took them to his door, where, surrounded by a staring crowd of women and children, they delivered him into the keeping of his wife, a thin and weary person, who looked upon his benefactors with almost as much resentment as upon him.
'What he really needs, I'm afraid I think,' Helen said, as she and Mr.
Kane walked away, 'is a good whipping.' She said it in order to see the effect of the ruthlessness upon her humanitarian companion.
Mr.Kane did not look shocked or grieved; he turned a cogitating glance upon her, and she saw that he diagnosed the state of mind that could make such a suggestion and could not take it seriously.

He smiled, though a little gravely, in answering: 'Why, no, I don't think so; and I don't believe you think so, Miss Buchanan.

What you want to give him is a hold on himself, hope, and self-respect; it wouldn't give you self-respect to be whipped, would it ?' 'It might give me discretion,' said Helen, smiling back.
'We don't want human beings to have the discretion of animals; we want them to have the discretion of men,' said Franklin; 'that is, self-mastery and wisdom.' Helen did not feel able to argue the point; indeed, it did not interest her; but she asked Mr.Kane, some days later, how his roadside friend was progressing towards the discretion of a man.
'Oh, he'll be all right,' said Franklin.