therto has been based upon the supposition that we were
situated thus or thus in money matters; when this breaks down there must
be a restatement of the social problem so far as we are concerned; we
have been obtaining esteem under false pretences. Granted, then, that
the three most serious losses which a man can suffer are those affecting
money, health and reputation. Loss of money is far the worst, then comes
ill-health, and then loss of reputation; loss of reputation is a bad
third, for, if a man keeps health and money unimpaired, it will be
generally found that his loss of reputation is due to breaches of parvenu
conventions only, and not to violations of those older, better
established canons whose authority is unquestionable. In this case a man
may grow a new reputation as easily as a lobster grows a new claw, or, if
he have health and money, may thrive in great peace of mind without any
reputation at all. The only chance for a man who has lost his money is
that he shall still be young enough to stand uprooting and transplanting
without more than temporary derangement, and this I believed my godson
still to be.

By the prison rules he might receive and send a letter after he had been
in gaol three months, and might also receive one visit from a friend.
When he received my letter, he at once asked me to come and see him,
which of course I did. I found him very much changed, and still so
feeble, that the exertion of coming from the infirmary to the cell in
which I was allowed to see him, and the agitation of seeing me were too
much for him. At first he quite broke down, and I was so pained at the
state in which I found him, that I was on the point of breaking my
instructions then and there. I contented myself, however, for the time,
with assuring him that I would help him as soon as he came out of prison,
and that, when he had made up his mind what he would do, he was to come
to me for what money might be necessary, if he could not get it from his
father. To make it easier for him I told him that his aunt, on her death-
bed, had desired me to do something of this sort should an emergency
arise, so that he would only be taking what his aunt had left him.

"Then," said he, "I will not take the 100 pounds from my father, and I
will never see him or my mother again."

I said: "Take the 100 pounds, Ernest, and as much more as you can get,
and then do not see them again if you do not like."

This Ernest would n