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 deathbed, 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 L100 from my father, and I
will never see him or my mother again."
I said: "Take the L100, Ernest, and as much more as you can get, and
then do not see them again if you do not like."
This Ernest would not do. If he took money from them, he could not
cut them, and he wanted to cut them. I thought my godson would get
on a great deal better if he would only have the firmness to do as
he proposed, as regards breaking completely with his father and
mother, and said so. "Then don't you like them?" said he, with a
look of surprise.
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