I was delighted with Rupert.

He is just what I could have wished his mother's boy to be--or a son of my own to be, had I had the good-fortune to have been a father.

But this is not for me.

I remember long, long ago reading a passage in Lamb's Essays which hangs in my mind: "The children of Alice call Bartrum father." Some of my old friends would laugh to see _me_ write this, but these memoranda are for my eyes alone, and no one shall see them till after my death, unless by my own permission.

The boy takes some qualities after his father; he has a daring that is disturbing to an old dryasdust lawyer like me.