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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 561
when the young ones had retreated from it. " I don't know what
to do. I have not told you all. I have paid four hills for him
already, and now he has—he has signed my name."
"Who has?"
" He at New York. You, know," said poor Philip. " I tell
you he has put my name on a bill, and without my authority."
" Gracious heavens! You mean your father has for _________ " I
could not say the word.
" Yes," groaned Philip. " Here is a letter from him ;" and he
handed a letter across the table in the Doctor's well-known handwriting.
" DEAREST PHILIP," the father wrote, " a sad misfortune has
befallen me, which I had hoped to conceal, or, at any rate, to avert
from my dear son. For you, Philip, are a participator in that misfortune
through the imprudence—must I say it ?—of your father.
Would I had struck off the hand which has done the deed, ere it
had been done ! But the fault has taken wings and flown out of
my reach. Immeritus, dear boy, you have to suffer for the delicta
majorum. Ah, that a father should have to own his fault; to
kneel and ask pardon of his son !
"I am engaged in many speculations. Some have succeeded
beyond my wildest hopes : some have taken in the most rational,
the most prudent, the least sanguine of our capitalists in Wall
Street, and promising the greatest results have ended in the most
extreme failure ! To meet a call in an undertaking which seemed
to offer the MOST CERTAIN PROSPECTS of success, which seemed to
promise a fortune for me and my boy, and your dear children, I put
in amongst other securities which I had to realise on a sudden, a
bill, on which I used your name. I dated it as drawn six months
back by me at New York, on you at Parchment Buildings, Temple ;
and I wrote your acceptance, as though the signature were yours.
I give myself up to you. I tell you what I have done. Make the
matter public. Give my confession to the world, as here I write,
and sign it, and your father is branded for ever to the world as
a __________ Spare me the word !
" As I live, as I hope for your forgiveness, long ere that bill
became due—it is at five months' date, for £386, 4s. 3d. value
received, and dated from the Temple, on the 4th of July—I passed
it to one who promised to keep it until I myself should redeem it !
The commission which he charged me was enormous, rascally ; and
not content with the immense interest which he extorted from me,
the scoundrel has passed the bill away, and it is in Europe, in the
hands of an enemy.
11 2 N