There was something about Rad's straightforward way of looking one in the eye that impelled belief.

As I had heard the Colonel boast, a Gaylord could not tell a lie.
The things a Gaylord could and could not do, were, I acknowledge, to a Northern ethical sense a trifle mystifying.

A Gaylord might drink and gamble and fail to pay his debts (not his gambling debts; his tailor and his grocer); he might be the hero of many doubtful affairs with women; he might in a sudden fit of passion commit a murder--there was more than one killing in the family annals--but under no circumstances would his "honah" permit him to tell a lie.

The reservation struck me somewhat humorously as an anti-climax.

But nevertheless I believed it.