I made my
own way and I shall expect my sons to do the same. Pray don't take it
into your heads that I am going to wear my life out making money that my
sons may spend it for me. If you want money you must make it for
yourselves as I did, for I give you my word I will not leave a penny to
either of you unless you show that you deserve it. Young people seem
nowadays to expect all kinds of luxuries and indulgences which were never
heard of when I was a boy. Why, my father was a common carpenter, and
here you are both of you at public schools, costing me ever so many
hundreds a year, while I at your age was plodding away behind a desk in
my Uncle Fairlie's counting house. What should I not have done if I had
had one half of your advantages? You should become dukes or found new
empires in undiscovered countries, and even then I doubt whether you
would have done proportionately so much as I have done. No, no, I shall
see you through school and college and then, if you please, you will make
your own way in the world."
In this manner he would work himself up into such a state of virtuous
indignation that he would sometimes thrash the boys then and there upon
some pretext invented at the moment.
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