you?"

Walter hesitated; then he said feebly, "I owe five week's board and some
items at the men's furnishing."

"How much will it all come to?"

"I don't know."

"About how much?"

"About seventy-five dollars."

"When do you have to pay that?"

"There's no hurry. It can wait."

"Do you mean to say that a bet, a gambling debt, an obligation made on a
dishonourable basis, takes precedence in time over honest claims for
food and clothing?"

"It's the rule here in Burrton," said Walter sullenly. "If a bet is not
settled at once the fellows lose their standing. The same is true at all
the eastern schools. You have got to meet debts of honour promptly."

"Debts of dishonour, you mean."

"That isn't the standard here, father. The standard at Burrton is
different from the one at home."

"I see it is," replied Paul, drily. "But the one at home is------" he
paused, rose from his seat and went over by the window and stood there
looking out over the school campus.

Paul Douglas had had in his fifty years of life many interesting and
profoundly moving experiences, but it is doubtful if in all his life he
had faced anything which stirred him so deeply as this. His high
standard of conduct made him loathe the entire gambling transaction. It
was agony to him to find that his own son was swept off his feet by a
custom which had nothing except common custom to excuse it. Above all,
Paul felt the bitterness that comes to a father when he realises that
the careful teaching of years has been deliberately disobeyed or
ignored. There was a mingling of bitterness and shame and anger and
sorrow and heartache in Paul that Walter could not possibly understand
as he sat there looking dully at his father's broad back and wondering
what his father would do.

After what seemed like an hour, Paul turned around.

"Give me an itemised account of your obligations outside of your
gambling expenses."

"I don't call it gambling to bet on the races," said Walter half
defiantly.

"It make no difference what you call it," said Paul sternly. "What is
all betting but trying to get something for nothing, and what is that
but gambling? Every boy in Burrton who bet on the race is a gambler?"

"The authorities never say anything against it," said Walter sullenly.
"The president knows that thousands of dollars are put up at every race
and he never has said a word about it."

"We will not argue about it," said Paul coldly. "Give your accoun