I am glad you like the children, and particularly glad you like the pirate. I remember very well when I had a general idea of occupying that place in history at the same age. But I loved more desperately than Boldheart.
ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Friday Night, Aug. 2nd, 1867._
I cannot get a boot on--wear a slipper on my left foot, and consequently am here under difficulties. My foot is occasionally painful, but not very. I don't think it worth while consulting anybody about it as yet. I make out so many reasons against supposing it to be gouty, that I really do not think it is.
Dolby begs me to send all manner of apologetic messages for his going to America. He is very cheerful and hopeful, but evidently feels the separation from his wife and child very much. His sister[17] was at Euston Square this morning, looking very well. Sainton too, very light and jovial.
With the view of keeping myself and my foot quiet, I think I will not come to Gad's Hill until Monday. If I don't appear before, send basket to Gravesend to meet me, leaving town by the 12.10 on Monday. This is important, as I couldn't walk a quarter of a mile to-night for five hundred pounds.
Like you, I was shocked when this new discovery burst upon me on Friday, though, unlike you, I never could believe in ----, solely (I think) because, often as I have tried him, I never found him standing by my desk when I was writing a letter without trying to read it.
I fear there is no doubt that since ----'s discharge, he (----) has stolen money at the readings. A case of an abstracted shilling seems to have been clearly brought home to him by Chappell's people, and they know very well what _that_ means. I supposed a very clear keeping off from Anne's husband (whom I recommended for employment to Chappell) to have been referable only to ----; but now I see how hopeless and unjust it would be to expect belief from him with two such cases within his knowledge.
But don't let the thing spoil your holiday. If we try to do our duty by people we employ, by exacting their proper service from them on the one hand, and treating them with all possible consistency, gentleness, and consideration on the other, we know that we do right. Their doing wrong cannot change our doing right, and that should be enough for us.