[The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne]@TWC D-Link bookThe Wrecker CHAPTER IV 4/21
You say you are well advanced with your first statue; start in manfully and finish it, and if your teacher--I can never remember how to spell his name--will send me a certificate that it is up to market standard, you shall have ten thousand dollars to do what you like with, either at home or in Paris. I suggest, since you say the facilities for work are so much greater in that city, you would do well to buy or build a little home; and the first thing you know, your dad will be dropping in for a luncheon. Indeed, I would come now, for I am beginning to grow old, and I long to see my dear boy; but there are still some operations that want watching and nursing.
Tell your friend, Mr.Pinkerton, that I read his letters every week; and though I have looked in vain lately for my Loudon's name, still I learn something of the life he is leading in that strange, old world, depicted by an able pen." Here was a letter that no young man could possibly digest in solitude. It marked one of those junctures when the confidant is necessary; and the confidant selected was none other than Jim Pinkerton.
My father's message may have had an influence in this decision; but I scarce suppose so, for the intimacy was already far advanced.
I had a genuine and lively taste for my compatriot; I laughed at, I scolded, and I loved him.
He, upon his side, paid me a kind of doglike service of admiration, gazing at me from afar off as at one who had liberally enjoyed those "advantages" which he envied for himself.
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