and I shall be further truly happy to be of personal service to
yourself if I can.'

"`I accept your offer with gratitude,' he replied. `You _can_ help me,
I dare say. I want employment as a clerk or book-keeper. Dare you
trust me yourself, or dare you recommend me to another? I dare myself
affirm that I will not disappoint an employer who may trust me.'

"There was a frankness and sincerity in his manner which completely
disarmed me of all suspicion or hesitation; whatever colonial _prudence_
might suggest, I _could_ not distrust him. So I offered him at once a
place in my own office with a moderate stipend. He accepted it without
hesitation, and lived in my house as a member of the family; and never
did employer have a more intelligent and faithful worker. As for the
child, his father never in the least interfered with my management of
him, though I brought him up after my own utterly unfashionable, or
perhaps more properly speaking, old-fashioned ideas. On the contrary,
he warmly approved of my system.

"`I cannot tell you,' he said one day, soon after he had come to live
with me, `how truly grateful I am to see you forming my dear boy's
character in the way you are doing. I want him to be the very opposite
to what I was myself at his age, and to what the generality of children
are now. I was brought up just to please myself and to have my own
way--to be, in fact, a little incarnation of self-will and selfishness.
I was allowed to ask for everything I liked at the table, no restriction
being put upon my self-indulgence. I went where I liked, and did what I
liked, and was never checked except when I was in the way, or had become
intolerably troublesome. I was placed under no regular discipline, and
was allowed to thrust myself and my opinions forward amongst my seniors
and those who were my superiors in everything but worldly position; and
as I grew older, and became inconveniently self-asserting, I was
alternately snubbed and humoured according to the whim or temper of
those who claimed authority over me. And what was the result? Alas!
Early reckless extravagance followed by ruin, and a character which
might have been moulded into something noble, now for a long time
shapeless and distorted. And my boy--well, I am only too thankful that
he has fallen into your hands out of his unworthy father's.' He spoke
these words with deep emotion.

"`I am truly glad, Mr Jackson,' I said, `that you are able to