In addition, we find your grandson has not applied the money sent by you to the settlement of his term bill, but has diverted it for his own uses. The bill is herewith enclosed, and I trust that you will give it your immediate attention.
Mr. Briggs, because of his undesirable habits, has not recently been properly attending to his courses, with the exception of his Oriental language work, in which he has continued to take a real interest. His examination marks in other studies have been so high as to lead to an inquiry, and we find that Mr. Briggs has been hiring some person unknown to take his place in three examinations and to pass them for him—a form of cheating which the large size of some of our courses unfortunately renders possible.
Any one of Mr. Briggs’s infractions of the rules would result in his dismissal. Taken as a total, they render that dismissal peremptory and final. I regret to inform you that your grandson’s connection with the university is definitely terminated.
Regretting that my duty compels me to communicate news of such an unpleasant nature, I am,
Very sincerely yours,
Hawley D. Travers, A.B., A.M., LL.B.
To Captain Alpheus Briggs,
South Endicutt, Massachusetts.
Down sank the head of Captain Briggs. The old man’s beard flowed over the smart bravery of his blue coat, and down his weather-hardened cheeks trickled slow tears of old age, scanty but freighted with a bitterness the tears of youth can never feel.
For a moment the captain sat annihilated under life’s most grievous blow—futility and failure after years of patient labor, years of saving and of self-denial, of hopes, of dreams. One touch of the harsh finger of Fate and all the gleaming iridescence of the bubble had vanished. From somewhere dark and far a voice seemed echoing in his ears: