ught it right to
use any of the capital sum. This I am proposing to transfer to you.
His mother did not execute any legal document and I have nothing
more binding than a moral obligation. If you undertake the
responsibility of looking after him until such time as he is able
to earn his own living, I consider that you are entitled to use
this money in any way you think right. I hope that the boy will
reward your confidence more amply than he has rewarded mine. I need
not allude to the Pomeroy business to you, for notwithstanding your
public denials I cannot but consider that you were as deeply
implicated in that disgraceful affair as he was. I note what you
say about the admiration you had for my brother. I wish I could
honestly say that I shared that admiration. But my brother and I
were not on good terms, for which state of affairs he was entirely
responsible. I am more ready to surrender to you all my authority
over Mark because I am only too well aware how during the last year
you have consistently undermined that authority and encouraged my
nephew's rebellious spirit. I have had a great experience of boys
during thirty-five years of schoolmastering, and I can assure you
that I have never had to deal with a boy so utterly insensible to
kindness as my nephew. His conduct toward his aunt I can only
characterize as callous. Of his conduct towards me I prefer to say
no more. I came forward at a moment when he was likely to be sunk
in the most abject poverty, and my reward has been ingratitude. I
pray that his dark and stubborn temperament may not turn to vice
and folly as he grows older, but I have little hope of its not
doing so. I confess that to me his future seems dismally black. You
may have acquired some kind of influence over his emotions, if he
has any emotions, but I am not inclined to suppose that it will
endure.

On hearing from you that you persist in your offer to assume
complete responsibility for my nephew, I will hand him over to your
care at once. I cannot pretend that I shall be sorry to see the
last of him, for I am not a hypocrite. I may add that his clothes
are in rather a sorry state. I had intended to equip him upon his
entering the office of my old friend Mr. Hitchcock and with that
intention I have been letting him wear