w he--! And
what ideas! Concealing them from me as he has done so cunningly! He
trifles with vice! His mind is in a putrid state! I might have
believed--I did believe--I might have gone on believing--my son Ripton to
be a moral young man!" The old lawyer interjected on the delusion of
fathers, and sat down in a lamentable abstraction.

"The lad has come out!" said Sir Austin. "His adoption of the legal form
is amusing. He trifles with vice, true: people newly initiated are as
hardy as its intimates, and a young sinner's amusements will resemble
those of a confirmed debauchee. The satiated, and the insatiate, appetite
alike appeal to extremes. You are astonished at this revelation of your
son's condition. I expected it; though assuredly, believe me, not this
sudden and indisputable proof of it. But I knew that the seed was in him,
and therefore I have not latterly invited him to Raynham. School, and the
corruption there, will bear its fruits sooner or later. I could advise
you, Thompson, what to do with him: it would be my plan."

Mr. Thompson murmured, like a true courtier, that he should esteem it an
honour to be favoured with Sir Austin Feverel's advice: secretly
resolute, like a true Briton, to follow his own.

"Let him, then," continued the baronet, "see vice in its nakedness. While
he has yet some innocence, nauseate him! Vice, taken little by little,
usurps gradually the whole creature. My counsel to you, Thompson, would
be, to drag him through the sinks of town."

Mr. Thompson began to blink again.

"Oh, I shall punish him, Sir Austin! Do not fear me, air. I have no
tenderness for vice."

"That is not what is wanted, Thompson. You mistake me. He should be dealt
with gently. Heavens! do you hope to make him hate vice by making him a
martyr for its sake? You must descend from the pedestal of age to become
his Mentor: cause him to see how certainly and pitilessly vice itself
punishes: accompany him into its haunts"--

"Over town?" broke forth Mr. Thompson.

"Over town," said the baronet.

"And depend upon it," he added, "that, until fathers act thoroughly up to
their duty, we shall see the sights we see in great cities, and hear the
tales we hear in little villages, with death and calamity in our homes,
and a legacy of sorrow and shame to the generations to come. I do aver,"
he exclaimed, becoming excited, "that, if it were not for the duty to my
son, and the hope I cherish in him, I, seeing the accumulati