children will, for things they could not have; but they were natural,
understandable children, not like myself, cursed with a fevered ambition
for the utterly unattainable.

Oh, were I seated high as my ambition,
I'd place this loot on naked necks of monarchs!

At the time of my departure for Caddagat my father had been negotiating
with beer regarding the sale of his manhood; on returning I found that he
had completed the bargain, and held a stamped receipt in his miserable
appearance and demeanour. In the broken-down man, regardless of manners,
one would have failed to recognize Dick Melvyn, "Smart Dick Melvyn",
"Jolly-good-fellow Melvyn" "Thorough Gentleman" and "Manly Melvyn" of the
handsome face and ingratiating manners, onetime holder of Bruggabrong,
Bin Bin East, and Bin Bin West. He never corrected his family nowadays,
and his example was most deleterious to them.

Mother gave me a list of her worries in private after tea that night. She
wished she had never married: not only was her husband a failure, but to
all appearances her children would be the same. I wasn't worth my salt or
I would have remained at Barney's Gap; and there was Horace--heaven only
knew where he would end. God would surely punish him for his disrespect
to his father. It was impossible to keep things together much longer,
etc., etc.

When we went to bed that night Gertie poured all her troubles into my ear
in a jumbled string. It was terrible to have such a father. She was
ashamed of him. He was always going into town, and stayed there till
mother had to go after him, or some of the neighbours were so good as to
bring him home. It took all the money to pay the publican's bills, and
Gertie was ashamed to be seen abroad in the nice clothes which grannie
sent, as the neighbours said the Melvyns ought to pay up the old man's
bills instead of dressing like swells; and she couldn't help it, and she
was sick and tired of trying to keep up respectability in the teeth of
such odds.

I comforted her with the assurance that the only thing was to feel right
within ourselves, and let people say whatsoever entertained their poor
little minds. And I fell asleep thinking that parents have a duty to
children greater than children to parents, and they who do not fulfil
their responsibility in this respect are as bad in their morals as a
debauchee, corrupt the community as much as a thief, and are among the
ablest underminers of their nation.

On the