“Well, don’t you see what I mean about the boy?” Mr. Cole asked irritably.
“No, I don’t. I think the boy perfectly delightful. I don’t as a rule like boys. In fact, I detest them. I’ve come slowly to Jeremy, but now I’m quite conquered by him. He’s a baby in many ways still, of course, but he has extraordinary perceptions, is brave, honest, amusing and delightful to look at.”
“Honest,” said Mr. Cole gloomily, “that’s just what I’m not sure about. That affair of the money at the beginning of the holidays.”
“Really, Herbert,” Samuel broke in indignantly, “if you’ll allow me to say so—and even if you won’t—you were wrong in that affair from first to last. You never gave the boy a chance. You concluded he was guilty from the first moment. The boy thought he had a right to the money. You bullied and scolded him until he was terrified, and then wanted him to apologize. Twenty years from now parents will have learnt something about their children—the children are going to teach them. Your one idea of bringing up Jeremy is to forbid him to do everything that his natural instincts urge him to do.
“He is a perfectly healthy, affectionate, decent boy. He’ll do you credit, but it won’t be your merit if he does. It will be in spite of what you’ve done—not because of it.”
Mr. Cole was deeply shocked.
“Really, Samuel, this is going too far. As you’ve challenged me, I may say that I’ve noticed, and Amy also has noticed, that you’re doing the boy no good by petting him as you are. It’s largely because you are always inviting the boy into that studio of yours and encouraging him in the strangest ideas that he has grown as independent as he has. I don’t think you’re a wholesome influence for the boy. I don’t indeed.”
Samuel’s face closed like a box. He was very angry. He would have liked, as he would have liked on many other occasions, to say, “Very well, then, I leave your house in the next five minutes,” but he was lazy, had very little money, and adored the town, so he simply shrugged his shoulders.
“You can forbid him to speak to me if you like,” he said.
Mr. Cole was afraid of his brother-in-law, so all he said was: “I shall write to Thompson about him.”