"Couldn't you set him to do something?"
"I might. But I haven't time to attend to him, Margaret. Business is business, and cannot be interrupted."
Mrs. Green sighed, and then remarked:
"I wish you would call on Mr. Elden and have a talk with him about John."
"I will, if you think it best."
"Do so, by all means. And beside, I would give more time to John in the evenings. If, for instance, you devoted an evening to him once a week, it would enable you to understand how he is progressing, and give you a control over him not now possessed."
"You are right in this, no doubt, Margaret."
But reform went not beyond this acknowledgment. Mr. Green could never find time to see John's teacher, nor feel himself sufficiently at leisure, or in the right mood of mind, to devote to the boy even a single evening.
And thus it went on from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year, until, finally, John was sent home from school by Mr. Elden with a note to his father, in which idleness, disorderly conduct, and vicious habits were charged upon him in the broadest terms.
The unhappy Mr. Green called immediately upon the teacher, who gave him a more particular account of his son's bad conduct, and concluded by saying that he was unwilling to receive him back into his school.