Sir Austin, marching onward, hears strange talk, between his son and Master Ripton, of fire and delay, and violence and vengeance, when Sir Austin condescends to play the spy. He discovers that the Hope of Raynham has embarked in his own vessel upon the waters of life. A sensation of infinite pity overcomes the poor baronet, asking himself what the years will do when one day has done so much; but he is consoled by the consciousness of his own part of Providence to his son. Baited and worried by his sagacious cousin, who shrewdly suspects his guilt, Richard takes refuge in lies. He lies upon a gigantic scale, to the horror of his father and the amusement of his cousin. But there is a fine and captivating manliness in his lies. He is a perfect boy in all his moods--an English boy, barbaric, brave, and pure. Observing him, Adrian says: ‘Boys are like monkeys, the gravest actors of farcical nonsense that the world possesses’--which philosophizing leads him to Hamlet and Ophelia. ‘She, poor maid! asks for marriage and smiling babes, while my lord lover stands questioning the Infinite and rants to the Impalpable.’ And when reminded of his responsibilities as Richard’s tutor, he replies: ‘I take my young prince as I find him: a Julian or a Caracalla, a Constantine or a Nero. Then if he will play the fiddle to a conflagration, he shall play it well; if he must be a disputatious apostate, at any rate he shall understand logic and men, and have the habit of saying his prayers.’ After the arson adventure, the shifts and lies, the failure of a scheme to help Tom Bakewell out of prison for his own crime, confession, and the bitter cup of an apology to Farmer Blaize, forced upon him by his father, Richard comes through the first stage of his ordeal a wiser and a better youth. There is a solemn reconciliation between him and the ruffled system-creator; tears, embraces, and a new aphorism on the part of Sir Austin: ‘Expediency is man’s wisdom; doing right is God’s.’ Reviewing affairs in an ingenuous letter to his fellow-conspirator, Richard says of his future divinity: ‘Wherever there’s mischief, there are girls, I think. She had the insolence to notice my face, and ask me not to be unhappy. I was polite, of course (British-boy fashion), but I would not look at her.’