“I was ungenerous enough to be prejudiced against this poor fellow when I first met him,” wrote he. “Neither his figure nor his manners are in his favor, and in his very diffidence there is an apparent rudeness and forwardness which are not really in his nature. These, however, are not mistakes you, my dear father, will fall into. With your own quickness you will see what sterling qualities exist beneath this rugged outside, and you will befriend him at first for my sake. Later on, I trust he will open his own account in your heart. Bear in mind, too, that it was all my scheme,--the whole plan mine. It was I persuaded him to try his luck in India; it was through me he made the venture; and if the poor fellow fail, all the fault will fall back upon _me_.” From this he went into little details of Tom's circumstances, and the narrow means by which he was surrounded, adding how humble he was, and how ready to be satisfied with the most moderate livelihood. “In that great wide world of the East, what scores of things there must be for such a fellow to do; and even should he not turn out to be a Sydenham or a Harvey, he might administer justice, or collect revenue, or assist in some other way the process of that system which we call the British rule in India. In a word, get him something he may live by, and be able, in due time, to help those he has left behind here, in a land whose 'Paddy-fields' are to the full as pauperized as those of Bengal.” He had intended, having disposed of Tom Dill's case, to have addressed some lines to his father about the Barring-tons, sufficiently vague to be easily answered if the subject were one distasteful or unpleasing to him; but just as he reached the place to open this, he was startled by the arrival of a jaunting-car at the inn-door, whose driver stopped to take a drink. It was a chance conveyance, returning to Kilkenny, and Conyers at once engaged it; and, leaving an order to send on the reply when it arrived from the cottage, he wrote a hasty note to Tom Dill and departed. This note was simply to say that he had already fulfilled his promise of interesting his father in his behalf, and that whenever Tom had passed his examination, and was in readiness for his voyage, he should come or write to him, and he would find him fully disposed to serve and befriend him. “Meanwhile,” wrote he, “let me hear of you. I am really anxious to learn how you acquit yourself at the ordeal, for which you have the cordial good wishes of your friend, F. Conyers.”