“DEAR SIR:—Your son Victor, at least he says you are his father, and have plenty of money, has run up a bill of sixty-seven dollars for livery at my stable, and I think it is about time the bill was paid. I am a poor man and I can’t afford to lose so much money. I have already waited till I am tired, but your son’s promises ain’t worth much, and I am obliged to come to you for payment.
“I shall take it as a favor if you will send me a check at once for the money, as I have some bills coming due next week. I don’t mind trusting your son if I am sure of my money in the end, and if it isn’t convenient for you to pay right off, you can send me your note on thirty days, as I am sure a gentleman like you would pay it when due.
This letter made Mr. Wentworth very angry. It is hard to tell whether he was more angry with his son or with the proprietor of the livery stable. He answered the latter first.
“MR. SETH KENDALL:—I have received your letter, and must express my surprise at your trusting my son, knowing well that he is a minor, and that I have not authorized his running up a bill with you. It would serve you right to withhold all payment, but I won’t go so far as that. Cut your demand in two, and send me a receipt in full for that sum, and I will forward you a check. I never give a note for so small an amount. Hereafter, if you are foolish enough to trust Victor, you must run your own risk, as I shall decline to pay any bill that may be presented.
Mr. Wentworth next wrote to Victor a letter from which a paragraph is extracted:
“I admire your audacity in asking me to let you leave school and go around the world with some scapegrace companion. You say it will only cost two thousand dollars. That probably seems to you a very small sum of money. When I was several years older than yourself I was working for seventy-five dollars a month or nine hundred dollars a year. It is evident that you do not understand the value of money. You speak of me as a rich man, and I admit that you are correct in doing so, but I do not propose to have you make ducks and drakes of my money.
“I may mention, by the way, that a livery stable keeper, who signs himself Seth Kendall, has sent me a bill run up by you for sixty-seven dollars. I have written him that I didn’t authorize your running up such a bill, and that he must be content with fifty per cent of it, or else go unpaid. Hereafter I forbid your running up bills in Illium of any description. Bear this in mind.