You have far better opportunities than thousands and thousands of boys,
and far better and more powerful friends than ninety-nine boys out of a
hundred.

"Then why fling away your chances and be impossible and useless and an
enemy to society, when society only wants to be your friend? What is the
good? What do you gain? And what do I lose? You're not hurting me; but
you're hurting and distressing your mother. You're old enough to
understand all this, and if your mother can feel as I know she feels and
ask you to consider your own future and look forward in a sensible
spirit, instead of looking back in a senseless one, then surely, for her
sake alone, you ought to be prepared to meet me and turn over a new
leaf.

"For you won't tire out my patience, or break my heart. I never know
when I'm beat, and since my wish is only your good, neither you, nor
anybody, will choke me off it. I ask you now to promise that, if I send
you to another school, you'll work hard and complete your education and
qualify yourself for a useful place in the world afterwards. That's what
you've got to do, and I hope you see it. Then your future will be my
affair, for, as my son, I shall be glad and willing to help you on in
whatever course of life you may choose.

"So that's the position. You see I've given you the credit of being a
sane and reasonable being, and I want you to decide as a sane and
reasonable being. You can go on hating me as much as you please; but
don't go on queering your own pitch and distressing your mother and
making your future dark and difficult, when it should be bright and
easy. Promise me that you'll go back to a new school and work your
hardest to atone for this nonsense and I'll take your word for it. And I
don't ask for my own sake--always remember that. I ask you for your own
sake and your mother's."

With bent head the boy scowled up under his eyebrows during this
harangue. He answered immediately Raymond had finished and revealed
passion.

"And what, if I say 'no'?"

"I hope you won't be so foolish."

"I do say 'no' then--a thousand times I say it. Because if you bring me
up, you get all the credit. You shan't get credit from me. And I'll
bring myself up without any help from you. I know I'm different from
other boys, because you didn't marry my mother. And that's a fearful
wrong to her, and you're not going to get out of that by anything I can
do. You're wicked and cowardly to my mother, and she's Miste