Moreover, Mr.Riley knew of no other schoolmaster whom he had any ground for recommending in preference; why, then, should he not recommend Stelling?
His friend Tulliver had asked him for an opinion; it is always chilling, in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give.

And if you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge.

You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.

Thus Mr.Riley, knowing no harm of Stelling to begin with, and wishing him well, so far as he had any wishes at all concerning him, had no sooner recommended him than he began to think with admiration of a man recommended on such high authority, and would soon have gathered so warm an interest on the subject, that if Mr.Tulliver had in the end declined to send Tom to Stelling, Mr.Riley would have thought his "friend of the old school" a thoroughly pig-headed fellow.
If you blame Mr.Riley very severely for giving a recommendation on such slight grounds, I must say you are rather hard upon him.

Why should an auctioneer and appraiser thirty years ago, who had as good as forgotten his free-school Latin, be expected to manifest a delicate scrupulosity which is not always exhibited by gentlemen of the learned professions, even in our present advanced stage of morality?
Besides, a man with the milk of human kindness in him can scarcely abstain from doing a good-natured action, and one cannot be good-natured all round.