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Rh "But, look here, Latham, I am able to take care of myself."

"It is a little remarkable you do not prove that statement." Here he assumed a more dignified manner.

"You mean my drinking; well, I pay for it, and"

"If the matter ended with the price, there would not be so much harm done," retorted Latham.

"Very few know I ever touch a drop."

"But those who know are your nearest and best friends, or should be."

"Oh, well! the best of us are moulded out of faults;" the other eyed him fixedly.

"And these faults have a tendency to produce blindness. I believe you fail to see that your morbid cravings for drink and fame are making your domestic life trite and dull—more than that, miserable. You are losing sight of home-life in this false fever of ambition, and," he added gravely, "grieved, ashamed I am to say it."

"This is startling, to say the least of it," Robert exclaimed, as he nervously thrummed the desk by his side. "Here I have been imagining myself the model husband. True, I drink occasionally."

"You mean, occasionally you do not drink," Marrion interrupted.