Page:Andreyev - A Dilemma (Brown, 1910).djvu/66

58 He scolded vehemently, but my entire inner being throbbed with contemptuous laughter.

Nothing, however, aroused my father's ire so much as my copybooks. Once, when drunk, he looked through them, seeming very hopeless and comical in his despondency.

"Haven't you ever made a blot?" he asked.

"Yes, papa, it happened once. It was when I was doing my trigonometry."

"Did you lick it up?"

"What do you mean by 'lick it up ?'"

"Just what I said—did you lick up the blot of ink?"

"No, papa, I applied blotting paper."

My father waved his hand with a drunken gesture and growled as he arose:

"No, you are no son of mine. No! No!"

Among my despised copybooks, however, was one which afforded him gratification—notwithstanding the fact that it contained not a single crooked line, not a blot or erasure. It contained, however, approximately