Back I went to Epping handcuffed to Hen, and the fact that we reached home late when no one was at the station to see us, was all that kept my folks from dying of shame.
My father stood my bail, and in a few days the detectives put matters straight by discovering that on the night I left for Boston, J. Peters alone had robbed the bank and made good his escape to Canada, but, believe me, Ted, until that mess was cleaned up I felt about as joyful as a leather merchant who's carrying a big stock in a falling market.
Now I don't believe for a minute, that either of those boys you brought home with you over Sunday, will turn out to be a J. Peters. It takes brains to be a successful bank robber, and in my estimation neither has enough of that commodity to head the lowest class in a school for feeble minded. But I do think they have enough nonsense in their heads to get you into a peck of trouble if you continue to run with them, so if I were you I'd cut them out.
At the best those boys may be harmless. There are a lot of things that don't do a man any particular harm, but life is only a short stretch, so why clutter it up with a lot of harmless things, when every young American has the opportunity to enrich it with what is really worth while.
The friends you make during the next few years will be your friends through life, and if I were you I'd select them as carefully as you do your neckties for they will wear much longer.
Your affectionate father,
William Soule.
Lynn, Mass.