“I would have been glad to send for him and bring him up under my own eye, but I didn’t dare to expose his health to this dangerous climate. I therefore placed him at school about fifty miles from London.
“I had been so long absent from England that I knew nothing of the schools there, but trusted to my business correspondent to find one that was satisfactory.
“He was placed at an academy kept by Dr. Peter Musgrave, whom I supposed a fitting guardian for the orphan boy.
“You see, I trusted to the judgment of my business associate. I have had little or no direct communication with or about Vivian, but, immersed in business, took it for granted that all things were going on as they should.
“My first doubt came when, about a month since, I received a letter from the boy, which I will show you.”
He took from his desk a letter, written in a schoolboy hand, which he gave to Guy to read. It ran as follows:
My dear Guardian:
I have been wanting for a good while to write to you about the way I am treated by Dr. Musgrave. He seems to have taken a great dislike to me, and uses me cruelly. I am sure it is not because of my conduct, because I try to obey the rules of the school. But I once complained of his son, Simon, who was in the habit of ordering me about, and who regularly made me give him half of my pocket money. Simon denied that this was so, and his father chose to believe him. The result was that I was flogged, and from that time I have been ill treated. Scarcely a day passes without my receiving punishment. I can never be happy here, and I do hope, my dear guardian, that you will remove me to another school.
If Dr. Musgrave knew that I was writing to you he would not permit me to send the letter. I do not dare to post it myself, but have got a schoolmate to drop it in the post office for me.
This was the material portion of the letter.